


Pay When You Can

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [23]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 66,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out that when VapuTech and JeanTech gets stolen, <em>everyone</em> wants it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which I Think About The Wrong Things

Actions that task even a Calabite of Theft: trying to get a keycard to work in a hotel room's lock while supporting a half-dead partner almost twice my weight, holding a backpack wedged with heavy Vapulan tech, and dealing with a broken arm that I had to pretend wasn't broken through the entire song and dance with the clerk at the front desk. It takes four tries before the light swaps to green and I can get all of us inside. Would've been easier if I could have left the bag in the car, but that vehicle's so hot someone is going to burst into flames if I don't get it away from our current bolt hole soon.

Zhune's still walking. Sort of. He collapses on the bed in the room, too much pride to keel over on the floor, and curses quietly, viciously, extensively in Helltongue once the door's closed.

"Right," I say, and drop the bag next to him. "Try not to die while I'm out."

He mutters something rude and not entirely coherent. As good as a promise. So I leave him there, and get back to the business of getting rid of stolen property.

The car I leave in a Target parking lot, one more anonymous red Civic in a sea of its cousins. Inside the store, I duck into the men's restroom when no one is looking directly at me, and get lucky: no one outside of the stalls inside. Which means I can dodge into a stall myself, and swap vessels. Leaving me rather taller, male, and without inconvenient structural damage slowing me down. At least the Civic was an automatic; I hate trying to drive stick with a broken right arm.

There's a part of me that says I ought to steal whatever I want from this place. On principle. But it's been a long day, and the cash in my pocket is stolen; paying for things the good old-fashioned way isn't exactly _dissonant_ when it's more convenient than the theft would have been, and shoplifting would require some actual thought right now. Besides, it's...petty. Boring. I cannot take stealing jeans from Target seriously two hours after running like hell from Judgment, which probably still wants that tech back.

Zhune has no problem with petty theft, but he also believes in style. I guess I split the difference, between the two of us. I don't care about the clothes, the flash, the dramatic reveals, but I like a clean plan and pulling off the impressive heists. It's _satisfying_ to run away from yet another near-death experience, still alive.

Usually still alive. I stand in the checkout line like an ordinary mortal doing a bit of shopping on a lazy Tuesday morning, and try to count up how many vessels I've gone through. First ever from Fire. The replacement from the War. The exact replacement from that one, which I held onto through going Renegade and working for War (and Freedom, now and again) and being caught by Theft. The one Valefor gave me as a present to Zhune. The one he gave me as a present to _me_ for fixing that thing with the plague ritual, and that I'm wearing right now. And finally my default since he dragged us back out of the Marches, which is currently sporting a broken arm and waiting wherever unworn vessels do. An exact replacement again, and not for a look I like.

But Zhune's right. It's useful. And it's good to have two, to have some way of swapping visuals when unhappy people are looking for someone of my description. Which they should've spotted on the way in; I've run into angels dozens of times in that vessel appearance. Some day Heaven will put together a proper database of known vessel appearances for all the demons they encounter across all their different Words, sync it properly, set it up to do facial recognition on people walking into Tethers, and...well. Those of us in Theft who specialize in Tether work are going to have some _problems_.

Fortunately, Heaven's almost as bad at harmonious community and toeing the party line as Hell, so we're not likely to start worrying about that any time soon.

I hike a few blocks away with my bags, and. It's a nice day. Not the sort of thing I notice much, but it is. Spring's starting to pull its weight here in New England, which means something different than it did where I worked for Fire. Flowers and birds and pale green sprouting everywhere, the way it does in the media that seems to believe every story ever is set in this climate. Maybe Nybbas is really fond of the area. Whatever the reason for the cliches, they make for a decent stroll until I find a parking garage to investigate.

Before I pick a new car, I make sure the security cameras on that floor of the parking garage aren't working. Depending on how much Judgment wants that tech back--and with how much Technology is paying us, I'd say there's a good chance the answer is _a lot_ \--they might well be scouring every video they can pull around every reported car theft in a ten mile radius, and I'm trying to keep this vessel from being tagged as demonic for a while yet.

Divine Fire spotted me once in it already. Which was...awkward. On several levels, some of which I don't think about for the sake of my own mental health. But maybe not well enough to connect me-being-invisible with me-pretending-humanity, and anyway, they're not on speaking terms with Judgment. Which is good. If as many parts of Heaven hated Judgment as parts of Hell hate the Game, I'd be in even better shape there when it comes to secrecy.

I crack the door on a few different cars until I find one with its garage ticket sitting inside, and then take a different car entirely. When you're not sure which types of information the enemy can track, confuse as many as possible. Slows them down, gives them headaches, and it's just plain good practice.

Resonating the tires flat on the SUVs I pass would be satisfying and quiet, but too likely to paint a big Calabite Was Here sign on the garage, so. I don't. There's a lot more self-control involved in working for Theft than I would've guessed from the outside.

Sometimes I wonder if other Magpies have more fun. Steal what they want, go where they want, get an occasional order from higher up the chain and take care of that before returning to the high-paced hijinks of crime. The Media wants to suggest that, but I'm not so sure it's true. Valefor doesn't toss us down onto the corporeal plane to _have fun_ , but to support his Word. There's room in that for some undirected work, spreading confusion and irritation across the landscape, but it's not exactly the wild life of near-Freedom that some people would make it out to be. The least directed Magpie out there is just all the more subject to someone with a distinction or Word showing up to take control.

But then, from what I've seen of Freedom, they're not all that free either. Less explicit hierarchy never means _more freedom_ , it just means...less clarity. Less protection. And the Game waiting to nip at your heels because it doesn't like a lack of structure.

All this contemplation aside, it continues to be a nice day, especially with the window rolled down as I drive back to the hotel by an indirect route. No sign of followers, though you never know with some of the birds wheeling overhead. If Theft got to have Kyriotates, we would win at _everything_. It's enough to make you wonder what the hell the Wind is up to, that they're not more effective. Too caught up in stupid pranks, maybe. For all that Theft and Wind are supposed to be suspiciously similar, we're not very. They do a little Word support for the Boss by accident, we cause a little chaos as a side-effect of our work, and that's pretty much it.

Sure, our attunements are a lot like theirs. Of course they are. The Boss stole them. If Judgment hasn't figured out that part by now, they're not very bright.

At the hotel, it's easy to remember which room is ours. The one with the disturbance humming out of it. And me here with my key card left in the pocket of a set of jeans on my other vessel. I lean back against the door, and wait. Could break the lock easily, but I'd like the room we're using to _continue_ locking, please, especially if anyone is on our tail.

Zhune yanks the door open so fast I'm probably supposed to fall in backwards. But I was expecting that. I duck under his arm, and drop the bags on the floor, next to the one full of tech. "Did one of those shots hit you in the _head_? Because this is no time to throw around Essence. Judgment has sharp ears."

"Judgment has no idea where we are," Zhune says, "unless you're a worse driver than I thought. Or unless you kept the car--"

"Please. Like I'm that stupid." I crouch down by the bags, and pull out clothes I bought him. "Since it's too late to be quiet, we'd better keep moving."

"And you expect me to wear that?" Zhune asks, dry and arch. He's probably still reeling on his feet, unless he's blown a lot more Essence than I think he has left for the healing, but that's never stopped him yet from making a point about style.

"Bit less conspicuous, isn't it?" I shove the clothes into his hands. "Shower. Change. And we'll _move_. I'll even let you pick the next hotel, since I gather this one's not up to your standards."

"A fucking Quality Inn is never up to my standards," Zhune says. He stares at me for a moment, narrow-eyed, because I am being pushy and he clearly doesn't like it, but he can be pushy right back when he's not making noise and wobbly. He stalks away to the bathroom. I get back to work with the bags.

By the time the shower turns off, I have the tech stashed in two cheap backpacks that wouldn't draw a second glance on a college campus, each piece wrapped in a few layers of towels. That'll keep the noise down, avoid any telling lumps seen through the fabric, and maybe most important, keep my own entropy field from eating through to something delicate. VapuTech is too delicate for me to risk so much as a scratch on anything inside. Would rather not die in a self-made explosion again, thank you very much. Once is more than enough.

Making other people die in explosions is more fun. If Technology actually took Calabim... Well, there's a time when I would've been tempted. But they don't, and that time is past, and I promised Zhune that I wouldn't set any more buildings on fire while I'm inside them, so, whatever. Beside the point.

My partner leaves the bathroom with a towel in hand and new clothes on. It's not a bad look, if you want to look like no one in particular. Jeans and t-shirts and cheap jackets don't draw attention. But my Djinn doesn't want to look like no one in particular, and it's a long ways from his preferred James Bond fashion sense. He tosses the towel on the bed after a last swipe at his damp hair, and says, "Next time, I pick the clothes."

"Next time, maybe you'll be conscious enough for the shopping trip." I hand him one of the two backpacks--no tossing for these, again because of the potential explosions--and sling the other over my shoulder. "Meanwhile, we could try inconspicuous? For the change of pace?"

Zhune only rolls his eyes at me. But he lets me lead the way, because I know which car the keys go to.

#

A full state away, Zhune gets us another hotel room. Something up to his standards. I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, try to decide what I want to do next. Getting thoroughly drunk, that sort of can't-think-straight place where nothing inconvenient ever comes to mind, would be high on the list, but I'm not sure it's a good plan when we're still holding onto the tech. Bad plan, even. So maybe what I need is _one_ beer and a good book, something I've read two dozen times and wouldn't mind paging through again.

Zhune hums out the Song twice more, disturbance spreading around us. Not enough to catch attention from anyone not already in the hotel. Let's hope there's not a Malakite convention in town.

"You could've done that in the car," I tell him. "Unless this is your subtle way of saying you want to keep moving?"

"I could've had let those angels tackle you," Zhune says dryly. "Should we try that next time?"

I wave away the comment because, fine, he has a point. "How long until we can get rid of this junk?"

"Day and a half."

"This is what happens when we're too efficient. We end up holding the bag when we could be taking a break." Not that I have any idea what to do during a proper break. Work on learning more useful skills, so that we can take trickier jobs, I guess. At least the jobs are interesting. I never used to get _bored_ , aside from that itchy period when I was Renegade with nothing to do but be afraid, and I'm not sure when it started. Used to be I could stare at the television or the ceiling and not care much which, during the long nights of pretending to be human. Doesn't work so well anymore. It doesn't help that I no longer need to pretend to be human for the Symphony, just for people looking at me right then.

"So change vessels," Zhune says, "and you can take a break. No one's about to break down the door and demand this back."

"They might." I could almost wish for it. Terror and life-threatening situations give me something to do. "If you're bored, go find a human."

"When you're right here?"

I spread my hands out on the bed, and do not look at him. His voice tells me everything I need to know, if there were any mysteries left on this particular topic. "Low on Essence, and staying inconspicuous. That vessel is not inconspicuous, even aside from the part where Judgment's too damn used to seeing it now."

"Not that low," he says, "and if they are going to break down the door, might as well not risk that vessel, if you're so attached to it."

"I am. I'm generally attached to my vessels. I like keeping them attached to me. Which is easier if I don't walk around in the same one all the time, where eventually the Host might buy a clue and jump me when I get within half a mile of one of their Tethers."

He sits down on the edge of the bed, his weight tilting me towards him. Doesn't mean I have to look at him. "You're going to be petulant about this again. Aren't you."

"Look," I say, wanting to be somewhere that isn't this expensive room with its ugly bedspreads and boring ceiling, "if you're _that_ invested in having sex right now, and _that_ convinced it has to be with me, get over the stupid monkey hangup about what body I'm wearing. I've never had any problem with this kind of thing, and why you do, I cannot possibly understand."

Zhune snorts. And then he swings over me, knees on either side of my hips, and stares down at me with all the sneering grandeur that a Balseraph could bring to bear. "As if," he says, "you wouldn't find another excuse."

"Might," I say. "Or maybe you'd stop caring about this so much once you got rid of that hangup." Which would be a nasty dig, against some Djinn, but Zhune's never been the sort to--well, to care if I know what he cares about. He's too confident to bother faking apathy.

He just sighs, like I'm being difficult in some petty, tedious way. Which maybe I am. Maybe I should just let him have what he wants, since he's less likely to come up with subtle revenge later if I let him have his way, but I cannot be forever giving _in_. It's not the details, it's the principle. "What you're saying is that I should pick up more beer if I want to get any use out of you tonight."

"You could get that kind of use out of me right now," I say. "No buzz required, much less needing to do it twice once I swapped to a sober vessel. Just learn how to _deal_. Do you need instructions? I would've assumed you'd have figured them out by now, but--"

He lays a hand over my mouth, and leans on it. Not hard enough to hurt. Exactly. Just enough that I can't keep talking without wiggling free, and that's not likely to happen. When my dread Prince decided to give me a recent upgrade, apparently being _stronger_ wasn't on the list of available presents. And I know where getting into actual physical fights with Zhune ends up. He's strong enough and fast enough that he can hold me down without ever needing to hurt me enough to pick up dissonance from the process.

"You're being unreasonable," he says, calmly and patiently. "You need that arm fixed, and better now when we're not in trouble than later when we're in a hurry. Don't be childish."

There are a lot of things I could say to that, but his hand's still locked over my mouth, so I settle for making a few rude gestures. Oughta pick up ASL and make him learn it too, so that I can get more eloquent during these discussions.

"Yes, and I'm taking that into account," Zhune says. He sits down on my thighs, and lifts his hand. "Do you need Essence for the swap?"

"No," I say, and pull the other vessel on. Which brings the pain back, with that broken arm. "If you're in such a damn hurry to make the hotel echo--"

"Shut up, Leo," he says mildly, and sings me back to health and lack of pain. Simple as that. "Room service?"

"Have you seen the menu? Their beer is crap." And he's not going to let me wiggle out from under him just yet, which means I need another line of attack if I don't want to lose this argument here and now. "You get beer, and I'll go buy you some stupid spy novel. The kind that comes with a dark silhouette on a blue cover."

"For a quiet night of reading at home?" Zhune arches an eyebrow, but he moves off me, dragging his fingers through my hair on the way. Need to cut it again, it's starting to look all girly. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Something that's...I don't know, 70 IBU or better." I roll off the side of the bed, and I'm back to my other vessel by the time my feet hit the ground, never mind about the noise. It's not that much, we can swap rooms again if we need to, and I would not mind some trouble. There are plenty of options for making trouble aimed at me reverse itself in a place like this, starting with calling in mortal authorities and ending with a lot of things on fire. I'm also clean out of Essence now, but so what? Sunset's about an hour away.

"Some Thieves," Zhune says wearily, "learn to assess diamonds, or tell forgeries from real in famous painting. Some of them can size up a mark's income and neighborhood at a glance. And I get the Calabite who cares passionately about beer."

"Not that passionately. I just know what I like."

"As do I," Zhune says. "Which you don't seem to understand." He offers me a quick, tight smile. "Never mind. We'll talk about it later."

I am not going to like it when later arrives.

Five minutes after he's left the room, I head out myself. Places to go, phone calls not to make. A usual mid-job sort of evening. But I can't just _stay_ in yet another damn hotel room staring at the ceiling. I don't think I have enough of a life left to waste it on shit like that.

#

So that's why I'm here. Slouching against the parapet that lines this bridge, one of those old concrete ones they bothered to decorate instead of a blank gray barrier to keep pedestrians from toppling over into the river. Sunset Essence arrived an hour ago. Probably another hour to go until Zhune gets annoyed enough at my absence to track me down, unless he finds someone pretty enough to distract him in the hotel bar.

I've gone through a pack and a half of cigarettes already. Light them up, let them burn down between my fingers. The wind's been all over the place this even, catching away the white puffs of ash to toss it into the river or down the bridge or back into my face in about equal measure.

I almost always remember to drop the cigarette butts down into the river before they burn so low as to sting my fingers. There was a time when that wouldn't have been able to touch me, as harmless as water. There was a time when that would've hurt me exactly as much as anyone else. And now there is a time when my dread Prince has decided that the Discord I was made with didn't suit his preferences, and the touch of a tiny ember that some _human_ could stub out safely against an arm leaves red sores between my fingers.

Should've remembered to buy gloves, back at the store, so Zhune wouldn't notice those. He takes my every scratch so personally lately. For all that he claims that whole incident in Shal-Mari a few months back was no big deal, just a stupid mistake on my part for coming after him, he's been clingier since. Or maybe since the thing in the Marches... I don't know. They happened too close together for me to tell what set him off.

Give it another few months and maybe we'll be back to old times. And I can cope meanwhile. We still work together fine, the current job being proof of that. Some Vapulan's personal project gets swiped by Windies, confiscated from the Wind by Judgment, and then stashed in a Judgment Tether? Call us in. We got everything back within two days of being pointed towards the right Tether, and I'm pretty sure we've muddied the trail enough that no one will be following us to the drop-off.

Well, following Zhune to the drop-off. He can handle that last step himself. I don't like dealing with Vapulans, or Habbalah, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual. I'd as soon send him to this city on his own to take care of everything and tell him to catch up with me when he's done. Would if he'd let me. I could spend two days in one of those college libraries that stays open twenty-four hours, and that'd be a lot less dull than drinking and hotel rooms and inevitably getting talked into letting Zhune have his way.

Which I minded less with Regan, who almost always got her way too, but that was different. I'm not sure how, but it was. She knew I was smarter than her, and she wasn't much older than me, and even if she insisted on being in charge she let me _plan_ things. Zhune lets me come up with plans, he knows I'm good at it, but there's always that sense that he's...the emphasis is on _letting_ me. That he could do it himself if he needed to, or wanted to, or just wanted to make a point. Which is bullshit. I know he's more effective with me than without, even if I've got some issues.

Maybe it's more that Regan was my own age, and Zhune's older than my Prince being one. There is no catching up to that, not in my expected lifespan. Zhune will always know more. Be better connected. I'm one in a very long series of his partners, and when this partnership breaks, it won't be from me moving on to bigger and better things.

I don't want bigger and better. I want a few possessions I can keep for a while, and a chance to make friends who aren't him, and, I don't even know. Nothing I can _get_. It's safer to only want his respect or approval and to get the job done. Getting the job done falls within the bounds of what is possible, and wanting the impossible leads to stupid decisions like going Renegade or calling angels for a chat.

Disturbance echoes past me, and it's a _relief_. To be able to stop thinking about any of this, and follow the sound. If that's Zhune, he might need some help. If that's not him, well, maybe I was wrong about muddying the trail, and I can scout for incoming trouble.

Anything's a relief, so long as I can stop thinking and go do something.


	2. In Which Lack Of Information Makes People Happier

One Essence in reserve for emergency escapes means that when I round a corner a block from where the disturbance was echoing, and find a dead man on the ground in an alley, I'm visible. Which is bad. Should've gone in with the Song already cued, but I was saving that for when I was closer to the center of the disturbance, and here's the violence, a block early. 

First assessment, thanks to a few years of Theft training and the War before that: man on the ground is dead (even a vessel can't survive a neck at that angle, the blood aside); the fight came from the far side of the alley and only finished here; no one who's not standing in the mouth of the alley (like the idiot I apparently am) can see that body on the ground past the dumpsters and piled pallets stored back here; plenty of space yet to run in either direction, so I am not thoroughly fucked.

And the person in the alley who is not dead puts up two hands, and says, "Hey, this isn't exactly what it looks like," and smiles uncertainly at me.

Second assessment hits my brain while I'm trying to decide between fight-or-flight, and that is: the dead man looks familiar because he's our Vapulan contact. Which means our job just got more complicated, and five gives you one, I'm looking at an angel.

Angels chase what runs. On some sort of "if you have nothing to hide" principle, I think. Instead, I raise my hands in turn, and shrug. "Just following the noise," I say, and take a step into the alley that takes me out of the direct path of the sidewalk, like I've got nothing to fear, without putting me so near that I can't still get a running head start.

"Then it's probably exactly what it looks like," the angel says, and chucks a bloody piece of wood into an open dumpster. "Would you lend me a hand? There's this nasty piece of emotion lingering in my head, and it's got me off-key."

Whenever you find an angel standing over a corpse, there's about a fifty percent chance that you're looking at a Malakite. But this one doesn't move like a Malakite, or look like one, exactly. I'd call the vessel a standard Seraph variety, if on the shorter end of the range that they usually go for: narrow and angled, high cheekbones and long limbs. The androgyny, though, is unusual. I don't expect that out of Seraphim any more than Balseraphs, regardless of what gender they feel like in their real form. This angel, I can't tell what they're trying to project, and they're not half so tidy as I usually expect Seraphim to be, either. Not stylish enough for a Mercurian... Kyriotate? No, I'd expect at least one animal watcher by now, and not a human risked in direct combat.

I give up on trying to figure that out, and say, "Sure," like... I don't know, do angels do this? Ask people they've just met who they assume are angels for help in body disposal? "What did you get hit with, and what do you need?" Because if this is a Seraph, it's time for me to start watching my words very, very carefully.

"Body in the dumpster," the angel says promptly, "until I can call in a proper cleanup team. Are you local? --or, wait, let me check for details, I _always_ forget that..." They crouch down by the corpse, and start going through the pockets. "Got hit with lack of self-confidence, if you can believe it. Which I don't get, because was that supposed to stop me? It's uncomfortable, but I don't need to have a lot of confidence in myself to keep hitting someone in the throat. Maybe if there was some sort of _performance_ aspect involved..." They look up, and give me a quick smile. "Sorry, I babble when I'm nervous. Terrible trait. It'll probably wear off whenever the resonance does, and I hope that's _soon_. Otherwise my weekly report's going to go on for pages and pages."

"Not local," I say, and crouch down beside the angel. Who is assuredly not a Seraph, because I've never heard one talk like that. I mean. I haven't heard many do a lot of speaking, but it doesn't seem in character. Totally the wrong vessel for a Cherub, and clearly not an Elohite. Maybe they're an Ofanite, but they don't seem fidgety enough for that. I've never yet met one of those who could sit still long enough to search a body professionally, and this angel has that part of the job down cold. "The subtler the Habbalite resonance, the longer it lasts, so you may be in for days of that."

The angel sighs, and drops the Vapulan's ring--the one that'll be hitting him with dissonance right now, to lose it to an angel--into the pocket of their denim jacket. "I bet you're right. Oh! Sorry, I forgot." They offer me a hand. "Name's Kai. Yours?"

Almost _certainly_ not a Seraph. "Andrew," I say, and take the quick shake, hope that's not a Mercurian after all getting a deep look into my history. Though I have ways of lying past those results. "What happened?" Which is to say, just how much trouble is about to fall on me and my partner?

"I got an all-points from Judgment for the area while I was between jobs," Kai explains, grabbing the corpse's shoulders. I get the man's feet, and between the two of us, we toss the body into the dumpster without making too much of a racket about it. "Something involving VapuTech, which sort of makes it my job to look into, though I would've anyway since they put out a general call. Cross-referenced with the home office for suspected Vapulans in the area, went to investigate, and I guess I got lucky." The angel shrugs, and then frowns, wiping hands down on that same jacket. I'm guessing a lot of those smudged marks on it are from other instances of blood. "No, I didn't get _lucky_ , I followed procedure and paid attention. Stupid Habbalite emotions."

"Problem solved, then," I say, leaving a tilt of question in my voice. I stuff my slightly bloodied hands back into the pockets of my jeans instead. "Lightning?"

"I work for them," Kai says, which strikes me as not quite the same answer as _yes_ , but not in a way I can usefully parse. "Problem mostly solved. The tech's still missing, and Judgment said there were at least two people involved in swiping it. Back. Do you think it counts as stealing if it was stolen in the first place? I'm never real clear on that."

"Yes," I say. "You can steal from thieves, after all." And we steal it back, and it's the circle of Theft, which moves us all. Even Judgment, which apparently steals from the Wind.

"Good point." Freed of corpse disposal problems, Kai takes out the Habbie's wallet to flick through it expertly. "Guess it's time to check the home address, and see what I can pull up. Which I'd better run on, in case there's a deadman switch ready to eat his files if he doesn't check back in regularly. Anything you need help on? I appreciate the hand, and, you know, the company."

"I'm good," I say. "But if you have a description of who else you're looking for, I can keep an eye out. Maybe give you a call if I see anything? Or hear anything."

"Better than a description," Kai says, brightening a little. "Wow, this is Habbalite thing is _really_ getting to me, you would not believe what the inside of my head is trying to say about my competence right now." The angel takes out a silver phone, the older snap-case style inside of a newer smartphone, and flips it open to show me the screen. Which pulls up a picture of Zhune in his current vessel, blurred from motion and shot from above. So we didn't clear all the security cameras in that place. Hell. I knew we should've taken it more slowly. "That's the only clear shot they pulled. We've been cross-indexing over in Lightning, but HQ says no useful matches among the Vapulans yet, which could mean just about _anything_." The angel pauses, and gives me a sudden concerned look. "Mercurian?"

I've pretended to be a Lilim and an Impudite and a tiny Djinn at various points, so why not this? Brand new clothes mean I don't have that Calabite ragged edge on everything around me yet. "Yes," I say promptly. "And not really the combat type, so if I see anyone like that, I'm not going to engage."

"Good," Kai says, "because apparently he's awfully hard to kill. Here, give me your phone and I can give you my number."

Except I don't have a phone, which seems very unMercurian of me. "I'm between phones," I say, with an embarrassed one-shouldered shrug. "The last one broke."

"I used to have that problem all the time," Kai says, "until they made mine unbreakable. And now they're saying that it's out of date and they can get me better, but I like this one. It has sentimental value." The angel searches their pockets, and comes out with a tiny spiral-bound notebook that I think came from the Vapulan's pockets first. Theft really is the universal concept, for humans and celestials both. "Here," they say, and hand over a sheet of paper with a phone number on it. "Direct line, unless I'm in Heaven, which I don't expect any time this week. They run you through the Lightning switchboard for that."

"I'll call if I see anything," I say. And because I don't see a scratch on this angel, "Nice work with the Habbalite."

"Thank you," Kai says, and nearly glows with a smile. "I appreciate that. It's sort of what I'm good at? That and--things that aren't so useful to Lightning and don't come up much anymore, but never mind _that_." Their smile wobbles, subsumed into a quick shrug. "Or give me a call if you need any help later tonight. I'll probably be in the city at least that long."

I raise a hand in a casual wave. "Will do."

They nod, and snap their fingers, and a motorcycle appears in the alleyway. It is...glorious. Silver with thin blue stripes, sleek and shiny in a way that says _fast_ , and if that's from Lightning, I cannot even begin to imagine what it can do.

If I thought there was any chance of winning the fight, and keeping that thing, I'd be mugging an angel _right now_ to get my hands on that cycle. Magpie biker gangs in a five-state radius should be feeling suddenly covetous just by this thing's existence.

"Nice bike," I say, and try to keep the envy out of my voice. I am Theft, and I'm looking at something I want and _can't have_. It makes me itchy.

"It really is," Kai says. They pull on a helmet, and wheel the bike away to the other side of the alley.

Definitely time to get back home and talk to Zhune.

#

Guess who's irate about everything? Not me this time.

"You couldn't even swipe the ring," Zhune says, slouching against the door of the room with his arms folded across his chest. We don't even have to be Theft for that _no exit_ symbolism to be clear. "Which would have been _useful_ , as opposed to showing off your backup vessel to an angel, letting him run off and destroy our contact's Role--"

"I'm not a fucking pickpocket, Zhune." I crack open a beer, as long as it's here. The cap resonates down into silvery dust that pours into the bottle itself, an aluminum tang to follow the hops. "Nor am I equipped to take down an angel who apparently destroyed that Habbalite without stopping to _blink_ when said angel is already staring right at me. What I have is a little more information about who's on our tail, and what they know, plus the opportunity to skip the rendezvous, what with our contact being _in Trauma_. We were paid to get the tech. We did that. We were not paid to defend him from Lightning, or save his personal jewelry from being stolen by the same."

"Maybe you should _learn_." Zhune has an expression that says if it were anyone other than me in this conversation, he'd have them lifted off the ground by the throat at this point. "Or do you intend to coast on your current skills forever?"

"Why not? My current skills are apparently making me some sort of _Tether expert_ , which keeps getting me dead. And sometimes you. What happens if I pick up new skills? More exciting jobs with higher risks? What is the reason to want to get better at this?"

And I drink my beer while Zhune tries to work out an answer to this that I'll believe. Because. It's one of those things we usually don't talk about.

"Face it," I say, right before he's about to speak, "I'm not going anywhere in Theft. Your partners don't. You don't get distinctions, because that would draw a little too much attention to you, and the Boss doesn't want that. Which means neither do I, not that I want any. We have a niche. We can keep being good at it. And what I have _done_ this evening is walk out there, find out what the lay of the land is, and pick up new information that'll keep us from being jumped by Lightning when we show up at the drop-off like a pair of chumps who don't know their contact is dead. Give me a little credit, here."

"Credit where it's due," Zhune says dryly. "Should I give you credit for walking towards disturbance and falling into an angel's lap, or only talking your way out of it again?"

"And the next time you get jumped, you want me to, what, walk away? Not give you any backup? Because there _might_ be an angel involved?" I sit down on the floor with my beer and wish I'd stopped at a bookstore on the way back. "That'll put a bit of a snag in our ability to operate efficiently. Unless you want to teach me pickpocketing so we can spend a month swiping wallets. That's real _stylish_ , right there."

"Don't be a brat," Zhune says.

"So don't be a controlling asshole, and we can work something out." I fling the empty bottle at him, and he catches it handily. "Go get laid. Or if you're not in the mood, pack up and we'll move out of here. I don't want to sit around and wait for that Sparky to put too much information together and come knocking." And because this will go even more wrong if I keep telling him what to do, I ask, "What are we supposed to do with this tech now? Are we being paid enough to sit on it until the Habbie gets out of Trauma?"

"Not by half," he says, and tosses the bottle back to me. I catch it mid-air with my resonance, and glass dust cascades across the carpet between us. "We'll stash it somewhere safe, and if no one else wants to buy before he gets out of Trauma, he can up the price to get his shit back."

"Works for me. But we're agreed on ditching this room?"

"No," he says. "You wanted to chat with angels, so we do clean-up. We follow the Sparky to the house he's looting, take him out, and sweep the place for the kind of information we don't want Heaven holding onto."

"It's not our problem," I point out, as I resonate the next bottle of beer open. Better stop at two if we're going out on the job again tonight, which is sounding increasingly likely. Not that I mind much. It's something to do. "If Technology can't keep itself in one piece--"

"It's _sloppy_ ," Zhune says. "They'll blame us for leading hostiles back at them, so we get proactive and we charge them for the privilege."

"I still don't think it's our problem," I say, and shut up as a voice falls into my head with Essence attached.

_Package for you. Come get it, no rush. Bring along a good book._

The voice is familiar by now, even if the Geas switching into activity weren't enough to confirm it. The message, however, is a little unexpected. I don't owe a damn thing to the Lilim that Ash works for, not _now_ , but the last time he called me in it was to activate that responsibility. Whereas this package is--I don't know, presumably he'll explain when I get there. And the Geas he's turned on is a tiny one, barely more than a helpful nudge. The Lilim equivalent of "Remember to pick up a gallon of milk while you're out."

"Are you even listening to me?" Zhune asks.

"No," I say, and get to my feet. "Got a message. I need to head to New York to talk to a Lilim about a book."

"Is this an actual Geas, or book club chat?"

Well, a little of each. And I'm not mentioning the package until I find out what that's about. "Actual Geas. He must've made it through the reading list. Can you handle cleanup without me, or do we need to cut this close by sticking around here all night?"

Zhune snorts, and stalks across the room to pick up the backpacks where I stashed them on the way in. "We can skip cleanup," he says. "I'll leave this with a friend in the city, and our client can talk to _her_ if he wants his project back that much. Do you think you can talk with that idiot Tempter for a few hours without being hooked a half dozen times over?"

"Yes," I say, and take one of the backpacks. "Pretty sure I can manage that."

"No more fucking Geases, Leo," he says, and stands in front of the door while I'm ready to head out, explosive technology slung over my shoulder and the remains of the six-pack in my hand. "Look what happened with the last one."

"That worked out fine. We got _complimented_ on that one." Sure, it nearly killed me, but in theory I'm supposed to be much more interested in pleasing my Prince than keeping myself in one piece.

"Promise," Zhune says.

Okay. I can see where this is going, as a new trend in how we deal with each other, and I do not like it. "You don't trust me?"

"To watch my back and come up with a crazy plan, yes. To keep your head on straight around Lilim, apparently _not_. So promise me you're not going to walk out of that meeting with more hooks attached to your soul than were there when you walked in."

"We're supposed to get along with Freedom," I point out. "Unlike some Words where that's the case, they even like us _back_. I don't know what you have against them." Which is a blatant lie, because I know exactly what he has against that one Free Lilim in particular.

"You can make the promise," Zhune says levelly, "or you can help me with cleanup here and explain the dissonance to the Boss yourself the next time it comes up."

I'm pretty sure that _no rush_ means I've got a good long time before dissonance hits, but if I tell Zhune that, it could be weeks before he'll let me go. And I don't much want to try jumping some Sparky who's that breezy about fighting Habbalah, in body and mind both. Or who can pull out tech toys that casually. Lightning's so loud they make the Wind look discreet, and I can just imagine the multi-Word pileup that could happen with Theft and Lightning colliding in a Vapulan's residence, and Judgment close behind.

"Fine," I say. No one can do immobile quite like an annoyed Djinn. "I promise that I will, to the best of my ability, avoid picking up any more hooks, Geases, or other inconveniently enforceable long-term commitments while I'm _delivering a book_ to a Lilim who's well-disposed towards us. Or at least towards me, since you're an asshole every time he so much as says hello. Is that enough to give you peace of mind while you go talk to your Vapulan friends?"

"It'll have to do," Zhune says.


	3. An Interlude, In Which Maybe We Should Have Done The Cleanup After All

Kai whistled as she worked. Something from the music Mannie was always putting on in his office, which probably meant Wagner, because the Bright's tastes in entertainment were focused, narrow, and generally didn't change in spans shorter than five decades. Twenty years from now he might even decide that the Beatles were sufficiently classic music to go into rotation.

The Habbalite's resonance still itched in the back of her mind. It was like falling back in time, to feel this off-kilter in everything she did. She had every scrap of paper in the house with anything that could conceivably be writing photographed, the contents of every electronic device's hard drive uploaded to one of those isolated servers that Lightning used for quarantine and dissection of Vapulan data, and a fair number of tiny bits of technology stowed properly in the blast-resistant case. And still the back of her head was saying things like _You're doing this wrong_ and _You never get this right_ and _Why do they even send you, when you're this stupid?_

Maybe the Habbalite would've been stopped by those kinds of thoughts, and that's why he used them as a defense. But she was used to them, she was _past_ them, after years of working for Lightning and being the dumbest--no, Mannie said that it was the wrong word, and he could be downright snappy about this point. Being the least scientific person in the room, that was it. Staring blankly at the briefings and fiddling with coffee or paper until they reached the point in the explanation that came down to _Go here and do this._

Even Habbalite resonance couldn't convince her that she was bad at that. She went places. She did things. Not always perfectly, but she got things done, and that counted for a lot, even in Lightning.

She paced through the dark house for one last sweep, the handy pair of low-light glasses (handed out with stern instructions to not let these fall into human hands, or demon hands, and for Jean's sake don't _hit_ people with these, Kai, they're fragile) helping her look for errors. Things she'd missed. There was something itching at her about the whole job, something about how easy this half was, that seemed out of place. But some jobs had to be easy, right? To balance out the ones that descended into chaos and unexpected complications and then usually fire and explosions and disturbance and a half dozen Kyriotates of Lightning sweeping through the area making grumpy noises about the cleanup work.

Her phone zapped her. One of these days, she'd convince the Sparkies back in the communications labs that there were better options existing between the ranges of Loud Ringing and Completely Silent Static Electricity, but for now they insisted that standard vibration was far too noisy for stealthy work. Apparently none of the _Malakim_ ever complained about it. She whipped the phone out and open before it could alert her again. "Hello?"

"Hello, Kai," Nosha said. The Elohite's voice was cheery rather than professionally neutral, which meant this was probably one of those times when her supervisor had asked Nosha to explain a task rather than attempt to make the disparate communication styles of Fidgety Ofanite and Taciturn Seraph mesh well. Professionally neutral didn't kick until there was a serious problem, or people listening in. "Are you busy? Something's come up."

"Not very. Finishing up a residence sweep for that favor I was doing for Judgment." Kai snapped the blast case shut. "The whole thing feels a little weird, but I can't put my finger on what. Probably nothing worth worrying about, and I'll note it in my report, at which point Seraphim get to frown at it until they have a better idea, and I'm babbling again, aren't I? Sorry. Habbie rez. It messes with my head."

"What did you get hit with?" Nosha's tone slid immediately into concern, which made her feel better, and wasn't that the whole point? Well, Elohim. They showed affection in their own way, and it wasn't any weirder than how Kyriotates or Cherubim or anyone else did, when you got right down to it.

"Self-doubt. If it doesn't wear off before I write the report, this is going to be the longest report ever, maybe excepting that time with that Tech Shedite and, you know, that server farm? With the stuff, and the Demon of Clockwork, and there was that whole thing where it was riffing on that one movie with that thing?"

"Yes, I remember," Nosha said. "Do you want a recall until it wears off? This is urgent, but you're not the only person near enough for a response. In fact, we're sending out about a half dozen seekers."

"No," Kai said, "I'm fine. A little unhappy, but fine. Don't tell Mannie about it. He'll worry." She took out her yo-yo, the one a Malakite of Judgment had given her ever so long ago, practically in a different life, and began snapping it out and back as she paced. "What's he up to, anyway?"

"Swearing at equipment," Nosha said, "since swearing at coworkers is considered impolite and counterproductive in fostering a healthy working environment that inspires everyone to work to the best of their abilities."

"Wow," Kai said. She set down the case, tucked her yo-yo away, and did an idle one-armed handstand on the back of the Habbalite's couch, which smelled suspiciously of energy drinks and Doritos. "That bad?"

"Energy use on this end is already double the high end on the design specs. You do not want to know what it is on the corporeal side. Which brings me back to the issue. The corporeal side lab was hit, and hard."

Kai tossed the phone in the air, swapped hands, and caught it on the way down, which gave her a second or so to process that. "How hard?"

"Three people in Trauma. Ezekiel was on security; he got Maharang out of there, then lost two vessels trying to pull the Soldiers out."

Kai dropped back down to her feet, and frowned at the phone, which couldn't transmit facial expressions. Maybe for the best, sometimes. "That's not hard, that's catastrophic."

"No," Nosha said, with a cool Elohite precision underlying its words. "Catastrophic is when Forces are ripped off and humans die. This is merely a large setback. They didn't get away with enough information to make the prototype work in under a month of dedicated analysis, assuming it even _does_ work. We were three days from the first test."

"Thus Mannie swearing at things upstairs, right," Kai said, and paced a tight five-point star between pieces of furniture. "Vapulans, huh?"

"Oddly, no," Nosha said. "We were already watching for that angle, or we wouldn't have had so much information on the one you just disposed of. Someone else entirely. Current data suggests the War or Fire, though we don't have confirmation on either. Given the affiliation between the two Princes, the strike team could even have been composed of both. They were smart enough to shed most of the trackers on the equipment as they went, but not clever enough to check the Soldiers for the same."

Kai paused, blinked, and spun on one foot. A perfect pirouette, and no one to watch. There were days when she wished desperately for her old work, and--that was a distraction, usually, or better channeled into nostalgia and vacation time, but the self-doubt was telling her _You were better back there, and you never should've left._ "What, they didn't clear the humans of employee badges and so forth?" She blinked again at the hesitation on the other end of the line. "Does Lightning actually tag Soldiers with _implants_?"

"Only voluntarily," Nosha said briskly. "And the signal doesn't go far. It's more useful to assign a Cherub, speaking strictly of tracking potential, but there are only so many Cherubim available, and then the Guardian ends up distracted from work."

"So this is the part where we get back to me," Kai said. "I'm looking for the Soldiers?"

"We have an unfortunately high number of locations to check for signals," Nosha said. "And only so many personnel in the area free to go searching. We'll send you a list of sites to investigate. If you find either of the Soldiers still alive, first priority is getting them out. We can send in a proper strike team to retrieve the equipment afterward, if it's in the same area. Or to interrogate anyone who was holding the Soldiers. If you do need to pull a Soldier out, an interrogation subject left under control and _alive_ would be useful. But don't risk any lives, including your own, for that sub-objective."

"Okay," Kai said. She rocked back and forth on her heels, then picked up the case. "Any connection to this tech issue and theft that I just cleared? Mostly cleared, seeing as I still don't have the tech back, or even know where it went. Not a clue to be found here, though analysis might pull up more."

"Not so far as we know," Nosha said. "Different Words, even if they get along better than some. Assume that I gave you the usual lecture about caution and self-preservation."

"It's been ages since I lost a vessel," Kai said, in mild indignation. "I know how to be careful."

"By your standards, I suppose it has been. Nevertheless. Any questions before I send you the site list?"

"How's Maharang?"

"Upset," Nosha said, and didn't elaborate. Which meant...well, Kai wasn't an Elohite to figure out all that this meant, but she was pretty sure that implied things like counseling and hugs and explaining to the reliever that being pulled out first was only right and proper, given its age and relative weakness, even if someone else had hit Trauma to make sure that happened.

"Okay," Kai said. There was no arguing with Elohim after a point. They made their decision based on available information, the best decision they could possibly find, and she wasn't really a bright enough Ofanite to quibble over the results with no new data to add. "Say hi to Mannie for me when he's between bouts of profanity, and tell him that I'll stop by to say hello in person the next time he has a break in his projects. Maybe that'll encourage him to schedule some."

"We can only hope," Nosha said. "Good luck, Kai."

Kai closed her phone. And did one more sweep of the Vapulan's residence, just in case. Just in case she was missing _something_. But she didn't find anything more to answer the nagging worry at the back of her head.


	4. An Interlude, In Which Some Problems Are Systemic

Zhune was coming to the unsettling conclusion that the problem was not his partner.

He watched Leo as the Calabite did the driving. An inconspicuous sort of watching, as outright staring would turn into a snappish argument he didn't want to inspire just yet. Zhune had spent centuries learning discreet surveillance techniques, and it was as easy to pretend some Binder-appropriate apathy, seat tilted back and eyes on the windshield, as it was to tail a truly unsuspecting mark.

Because the Calabite did not suspect this. At this point, the narrative was still clear. _You're fucking up, kid._ Any sidelong glance Zhune allowed Leo to catch, any change of expression, would be taken as a communication of that statement. Something had shifted between them since that incident in Shal-Mari, and of course it was his partner's fault. It was always his partner's fault when something went wrong. He picked some, was assigned others, and did his best with them. Had always been meant to work as part of a two-demon team. All the way back to the day he was made in the image of his Prince--

_The past is another country. And besides, the wench is dead._ He could hear that in Leo's voice, lilting bitter mockery of some discussion of the Calabite's past. Maybe he had the words wrong, translating between one language and the next. He could, with a little effort, put it back in the first human language he'd ever learned, which no one on this planet still spoke.

It had to be his partner's fault. A mad little Destroyer who tried to infect him with poetry, asked the wrong sorts of questions, clung to a self that should have been shed with a lost affiliation to another Word. Too useful to break, too stubborn to leave as he was.

_The art of losing isn't hard to master,_ Leo had said, so drunk she didn't remember that conversation the next morning, in a hotel room across the country a month ago. _Do you ever wonder how much more we could lose and still be ourselves?_

Zhune did not wonder, because he knew. To move from the Game to Theft meant leaving the entire self behind, to become a creature as new and different as complete Force dissolution would have produced. The process only took longer, and left more memory attached. If there was a problem in this partnership, if the spaces between work were too full of difficulties, if he could no longer _control_ his partner as he ought, that was the fault of some lingering attachment to a previous self. Which could be fixed. He was no Prince to fix such problems perfectly and rapidly, but he knew how these things worked.

And yet the disjunction had begun in that back room in Shal-Mari, when the Calabite had looked at him and said _I know what you're doing._ Which should not have changed anything. Zhune knew what Valefor did to him, all the way through the process. At times his Prince had explained the details to him, when the breaking, the rebuilding, might have otherwise been unclear. Seemed unfair or arbitrary. To know that the process was underway changed nothing.

Something was wrong, and he was no longer certain which of them had changed. Whether he ought to blame that Habbalite (which had worked its way inside his partner's head faster than he thought possible), the Lilim who took advantage of Leo's desperation (and perhaps he ought to blame himself there, yes, that was fair, because he had made the Calabite that dependent, had deliberately installed the connection that would lead to that desperation), or that Cherub of Waters who--did something. He wasn't sure what. But he'd made the mistake of letting the two of them speak alone, somewhere in the Marches, when he was distracted by the nature of that place.

There. An answer. The problem wasn't his partner, who had not changed overmuch in the last few years, except to assert himself slightly more of late, and that Zhune could deal with. It showed confidence in being part of Theft. That was good and within tolerances. The problem wasn't _him_ , wasn't anything he had done wrong, except to let certain bad habits go unchecked. To even (he might as well be honest) encourage them, for their potential. He'd tangled angels up in their attachment to a partner of his before. Sent a Cherub of Judgment back to her master dissonant and baffled, pulled one Servitor of the Wind (he could no longer remember its Choir) all the way down into Hell, and it was a game he enjoyed, but oh, it was a _dangerous_ game. Which made it entertaining. Which made it risky, especially when there were other problems at hand.

He could blame the Cherub of Waters. It had taken advantage of his partner in a moment of uncertainty, when she was still reeling from other events. He could blame the Habbalite of Gluttony, for causing that instability in the first place. And if he could keep her away from both, keep her locked down and under control, all would be well.

All problems could be resolved by a man with enough experience and dedication. He had plenty of both.

"You're plotting something," Leo said, eyes still on the road. "Aren't you."

Zhune flicked a more direct glance to the side. There was no use watching Leo's face when he got like this, it was all masks and pretense that would make a Balseraph proud, but the Calabite's hands on the steering wheel could tell him plenty. Not too tense. Everything was as fine as it was likely to get between the two of them until he resolved this. "What gives you that idea?"

"The fact that you're not complaining about the radio station I picked."

"Better than books on CD," Zhune said.

"Yeah, well, I gave up on that idea after you drove over the last three sets. You could just _say_ if you don't like a book."

"I did say." Zhune tucked his hands behind his head, and watched the headlights on the road. "Repeatedly."

"Yes, but you didn't back it up with any sort of good argument as to why," Leo said, bright and vicious, and that was fine. That was what his partner was supposed to sound like, because arguing over these sorts of things was _fine_. Matters of no consequence.

Leo could have any contrary, arbitrary preference he liked, so long as he didn't try to make demands on important matters. That was more than fair. Some demons would never give their partners such a good deal as Zhune was willing to offer.


	5. In Which The Nature Of Friendship Is Complicated

When Ash opens the door of his absurdly expensive condo, he smiles like I'm exactly the person he wanted to see, and I'm almost enough of a sap to let myself believe it. "Come on in," he says, "and let me get you something to drink. Coffee, beer, anything else?" And his expression slides into a state that's a bit more personal, more sly, as he adds in good cheer, "No hooks, honest."

"Beer," I say, and flop down in a corner of his couch, my feet propped on his coffee table (which seems to have acquired a glossy book on NYC turn-of-the-century architecture since I was last here), with the book I brought resting beside me. "And thanks. So what's this about a package?"

Ash brings two beers to the coffee table, from a brewery I've never heard of. Which should not surprise me, given his established hipster tendencies. "I'll go get it. I wasn't expecting you to show up so soon. Though I'm always happy to see you."

I resonate off both caps, and hand a bottle back to him. "You say that now, but wait until the first time I show up asking for a place to hide because divine Fire's on my heels."

"I'd give you very reasonable rates," he says sweetly, and disappears into the bedroom while I start on the beer. Which is damn good, so hoppy it's trying to claw through the roof of my mouth with a complex aftertaste that doesn't make itself apparent until a few swigs in.

"What would the rates be?" I ask, when he reappears. "Hypothetically speaking."

"It would depend on how great the risk was, and whether or not you wanted your partner cut in on the hiding." Ash sits down cross-legged on the coffee table. "How's the beer?"

"Good. Where did you find it?"

"A downstairs neighbor writes food reviews. Mostly restaurants, but also local microbreweries and so forth. For state values of local. She's been hooking me up with the good stuff." Ash has a swig of his beer, and sets the box he's carrying--a tiny square thing, maybe a few inches to a side--down in his lap. Does he think I'm going to bolt the instant I pick up the package?

\--wait, does that mean he wants me to stick around? Because. I think he does, but I know better than to trust that from a Lilim, no matter what he says. Or acts like. Or claims. Never mind. I pick up the book, and hand it over to him, the active Geas melting away in my consciousness as I do so. "A good book, as requested."

Ash sets down his bottle on a coaster to hold up the book. "The Annotated Alice?"

"Alice in Wonderland, and sequel, with handy annotations. It's a kid's trip through the Marches, along with comic poetry. You'll like it."

"I expect I will," he says, and smiles at me like it's exactly what he wanted, and not just a tentative guess on my part based on how he's reacted to other reading I've suggested so far. "Since people keep telling me I shouldn't risk traveling into the Marches, this is as close as I ever come. That and hearing the stories."

"So remind me to tell you some time about when I was in Heliopolis," I say, and remember about three seconds and a good swig of beer later that I probably shouldn't talk about that. Given that the official story from Theft, insofar as we do official anything, is that I joined up with Valefor maybe two weeks about going Renegade and have been a good little responsible Calabite attached to a proper Prince ever since. "What's in the box?"

"No idea," Ash says, and finally hands it to me. It doesn't weigh much. A tiny box wrapped in brown paper, taped down a single strip of clear tape. Fragile as anything, and I could probably destroy it outright almost by accident. "Someone paid to have it delivered to you, and paid to make sure no one else looked inside along the way. Which makes it some sort of secret, I expect. Do you want to open it in private?"

"Can't imagine what sort of secret." I peel the tape off carefully, and remove the paper. What's inside is a pale wooden box polished until it almost shines, made of a dozen sliding pieces.

Oh. I don't even need to open it to know who sent it.

Which means I probably shouldn't open it in front of Ash, and maybe that's something that I even _Need_ , but surely--I am overthinking this. I turn the box around in my hands, and start working out the trick to the puzzle. It's no artifact, this one. Just a mundane collection of well-crafted parts that I can open the catch on within a minute of careful work. Ash is carefully looking off towards the enormous windows to his balcony while I open it, and once again I can't even bring myself to care if that's a way of him giving me what I Need. Though I promised Zhune I'd be careful, and I _will_ be. I'll talk about this with the Lilim. Once the box is open.

All that's inside: enough cotton fluff to keep the single real item from rattling around.

It's a penny. Almost. A copper disc the size and weight of a penny, almost glowing with its shine, and one side has been stamped with a stylized image of a Seraph.

I flip it over between my fingers, and the image on the other side is what I should have been expecting. What I did not expect even so, like some sort of idiot. I almost drop the damn thing right there. Right there on the penny's face is a circle with jagged edges. Ring of fire, the idea of an Ofanite, and this is almost _cruel_ in a way I'm sure he didn't think about. Or maybe he did think about it, and decided it was worth what that said anyway.

I know what he wants and I cannot give it to him. He should stop _wanting_ it, like I'm trying to stop wanting things I can't have, can't even steal, and it'd hurt less all around.

So that leaves me with two things to think about while I sit here with this message in my hand. 

First, the penny's losing its shine already. Just from sitting there between my fingers. Not decaying, my entropy's not _that_ bad, and I do not eat through spare change in my pockets by my own presence, but even so. The shine can't stand up to being in my hand. Which is probably symbolic right there.

Second, it's a token. No hiding that, and clearly Penny wasn't even trying to hide it. If he's the one who owns this artifact, really and truly, then he can, with enough concentration, find it anywhere in the world. Not so good as a Djinn's resonance, but enough to track down wherever it's gone to. Which is some sort of offer that I should know better than to accept. Hell, it's practically a _threat_ , and Freedom should've known better than to make deliveries for angels, no matter how much they paid, if that means an angel can follow the package through every set of hands on its trip to me.

But Freedom's not stupid. They probably made him promise he wouldn't, first. No wonder Trade's about the only Word of Heaven they're even rumored to deal with regularly. As near as the Host gets to Lilim.

I should destroy this coin right now before I give in to temptation and _keep_ it. (Except he'd know I had done that, as soon as he went looking for its location and came up with nothing.) Or toss it off the balcony and tell him next time we talk (whenever that might be) that it's a nice thought but sorry, no, do you have any idea what the Game would _do_ to me if they found out? (But I'm Theft. I'm all about keeping things from people.) Hell, what if _Zhune_ finds out? He goes through my pockets all the time. That explanation would not be pretty.

And if I can't keep one tiny coin from him, if I cannot keep _that much_ to myself, then I am not good enough at Theft to deserve to be his partner.

I snap the box shut, and set the puzzle pieces back in order. The penny goes in the coin pocket on my jeans, that ridiculous narrow area that I never bother with because it's annoying to work things in and out of it. And so long as I'm wearing the other vessel, this one vanished away with everything on it, Zhune _can't_ find anything there. The box is a pretty little toy, and he's bound to take it away eventually if I don't lose it or break it first, but that I can live with. It's more a reminder than anything else.

When I gather up the paper to go in a jacket pocket with the box, I finally see that there's writing on the inside. Which makes it a good idea, or maybe a terrible idea--I'm not happy with how hard it's getting to tell the two apart--that I didn't resonate the thing open. Dark brown ink on brown paper is not easy to read, and I have to smooth the sheet out over my knee and tilt it up to the light to parse what it's saying.

_I cannot understand some of the decisions you have made lately. While the value of the results is inarguable, I worry for your safety. However, they remain your decisions to make. Please be careful. Call any time._

I crumple the paper into a ball, and resonate it into a fine dust. Which I pour back into a pocket rather than get it across Ash's carpet. He's still watching the city lights through the balcony windows, polite and quiet all this time.

"Thanks," I say.

He looks back over his shoulder at me. "Done with the package? I'd ask what was in it, but I probably shouldn't, not when I wasn't allowed to look in the first place."

"Done," I say, and toss the puzzle box over to him. Which he manages to catch, but just barely. No Thief, this kid. (Probably shouldn't call him a kid, either, as he's exactly as old as I am. Even if he has almost no experience on the corporeal, he grew up in Shal-Mari, which is a horrible learning experience all its own.) "It was payment for a favor I did an acquaintance some years back. Never thought I'd hear back about that, since there was no way to enforce payment, but once in a while you get a lucky surprise."

Ash turns the box about between his fingers. "How does this open?"

"There's a trick to it. See if you can figure it out. What, you never played with a puzzle before?"

"Not like this." The Lilim leaves the coffee table to sit on the couch, leaning right up against me. He toes his shoes off so that he can curl his feet up beneath him. "When I was just made, I used to play with data analysis puzzles. You know, the ones where they give you a long list of weird details, and you need to figure out who's sitting next to who around the table and getting what meal and which of the people is poisoning who else, even though the facts are things like 'Susan has three dogs' and 'Bill is three seats away from a man who hates the color green.' Not so much the physical type of puzzles."

"So give it a shot, and learn something new." I slide the first piece of the sequence out of the way, then back in. "Call it a thank you for the beer."

Ash bends his head over the puzzle, and starts pushing the pieces around. Making a mess of it, in fact, but I resist the urge to interfere while he's figuring it out. "I meant what I told you," he says, not looking up at me. "About not charging. I don't hook friends, not without saying so. And I'd rather work with Geases, agreed on and up-front about it, when it's someone I like. Less trouble later."

"That's not very demonic of you, Ash." Whereas it's entirely demonic for me to pull off my own shoes and relax here on this couch, his head resting against my shoulder, and do what I want for a change of pace.

"Is too," he says. "I'm a demon. Therefore, whatever I do is demonic. Q.E.D. How could it not be?"

"You don't think it's a little out of the expected norm to give things out for free, or be nice without expecting payment? We're demons, which makes us a bunch of sociopaths, at least by human standards. Or outright solipsists in some cases. A pack of narcissists. It's what comes naturally."

"You worry about this too much," Ash says. He's worked out half the sequence, but he's having trouble with the middle stage. The trick is in figuring out that you need to slide a piece you've already moved back into place to continue. "There's this human downstairs. The one who gives me beer recommendations. I help her carry her groceries upstairs, and sometimes I get a hook for it, sometimes I don't. We talk about the hot new restaurants that no one else has discovered yet, or beer. Sometimes that's a hook, too. So that's demonic, right?"

"Right," I say. "It's what Lilim do."

Ash slides a piece back to where it started, and then it's a few seconds before he has the other half done. The box latch snaps open in his hands. "Ha! So that's how it goes. Anyway, my point is, I could do all the exact same things and not hook her. After all, sometimes I don't. But it's still me. I enjoy the conversation just as much. It's exactly as much effort to carry the groceries. So what makes this less demonic? Am I going wrong as a Lilim if she dies of old age, or being hit by buses, whatever humans tend to die from, and I never once use one of those hooks?"

"I don't know," I say, while he considers the cotton inside the otherwise empty box. "How would I know what Lilim are supposed to be like, except from the outside?"

"I say it's fine." He looks up at me through his eyelashes, a blatantly flirtatious expression that I can't help but appreciate. "And there's a Lilim, saying it's appropriate. Who would know better? You're a Calabite, and you resonated those bottle caps open. Is it a less demonic move because it was helpful to me? Because it was _nice_? Are Balseraphs doing it wrong when they convince people to believe something that's actually the truth? We are what we are, Leo. If there's any point in being a demon, it ought to be that we can do what we like, and if I _like_ being nice to my friends, who can tell me I'm wrong?"

"The Game?"

"Well, fuck them if they can't relax," Ash says. "You're Theft, so they hate you anyway. I'm with Freedom, and no matter what anyone _says_ is officially so, they're not exactly fond of us either. Or do you really make your decisions based on what the Game might do to you?"

If I've been making choices that my Prince might disassemble me after, I can't even pretend I'm still playing by Game rules. No matter how wise it might be to pretend otherwise around someone whose Word is on better terms with them than most. "Not exactly," I say. "Incidentally, sorry for showing up at three in the morning."

"Like I mind," Ash says. "I said you're welcome, and I mean it." He leans in, rests a hand on the couch arm behind me. "Do you want to know what you Need, Leo? And I will swear, if you don't trust me otherwise, to lay neither hook nor Geas on you for any of those Needs. Not tonight."

And I would not for the world ask him to swear it, but I made my own promise. "Swear it," I say, and wonder if that hurts. Or if he cares. If I'm reading far too much into all of this, when I barely know this Lilim (and let's not think about how well I know Penny, who I've met a half a dozen times, done a project and a half with, spoke with on the phone a few times, but that is entirely different and I know he'll keep his promises) but now that I've asked, I can't unask it, anyway.

And he just smiles at me, and lifts a hand. "I swear by my nature that I'll lay no hook or Geas on you tonight, for whatever Needs I might read or fulfill." He lowers that hand onto my shoulder. "You Need a friend like a drowning man needs a rope, Leo. And here's the funny part. If I'm your friend, real and true and all the way through, I can't ever lay a hook for that. Because a friend _wouldn't_. It's this Need shining in your eyes that's so easy to fulfill and impossible to charge for."

"I am still pretty sure that you're getting some part of this 'being a demon' thing wrong, Ash," I say, and am not surprised that he slides into my lap, laces his fingers behind my neck. "However, under the circumstances, I'm willing to let it pass without criticism."

"You Need a hug," he says sweetly, "and another beer, both of which I can get you. Another job to do, which I can't help you with. Some space from your partner, which you're getting right now. Several things from him that are probably none of my business. A long conversation with whoever sent you that box. To keep various secrets, which of course I don't know the details on anyway, so don't look at me like that. A shiny motorcycle you saw recently, to keep Judgment off your trail, me in bed with you, and should I go on?"

"How do you _do_ that?"

"I'm very good at finding out what people Need," Ash says, and shrugs one shoulder. His fingers play against the hair at the back of my neck. "That's how I was made, because that's what someone wanted. You were made to destroy things, I was made to look in people's eyes and know exactly what they want, and have a good guess at how much they'd pay to get it."

"And here I thought Lilim had more of a choice." Maybe I shouldn't have asked, or shouldn't have accepted the offer to be told. It's like being naked already, to know how deeply he can see through me. (Maybe it's fair that the angels get Lilim too, even if I'm not supposed to know that. They're the ones who see into people like this. Them and the Habbalah, who have a good argument there for being angels after all.)

"There was a choice, Leo. There's always a choice." He's gone more serious now, which is not a bad look on him either. I have to stop wondering how much of that is deliberate posing, how much natural reaction, because it doesn't matter. I can't know the truth of anyone else's mind. "I could take on the debt for my creation and be Free, or bind to one of the bidders available--there were a few who would've taken me happily right then--or choose not to be."

"Which isn't a real choice at all, is it?"

"Of course it is," he says. "The last choice is the most important one. The opportunity to look at the rules of existence and say, I refuse to be a player in this game. There are those who take it. I think that when--" And he stops abruptly, mouth twisting at one corner. "Can't talk about that. Never mind. Still. 'Do this or die' may not be the choice we want, but it's a _choice_. Most people get it, even if they're not aware. If you wanted to _not be_ , to refuse all the other options of existence, you could find a way."

"But I haven't," I say, "because I'd rather deal with this mess of reality than not."

"Exactly," he says, and sounds absurdly pleased at this. "Which I appreciate, because I'd miss you if you were gone."

"Who was bidding for you?" I ask, which is probably a personal question, but I'd like to know. Since he knows so much about me anyway. "If you had chosen to bind to a Prince instead of remaining Free."

"Fate, the Game, and Technology," he says. "Though as I understand it they were mostly standing bids for any Lilim made with certain criteria, not a custom request. I thought about Fate, just for a minute. It seemed like..." His gaze drifts away from me towards the bookcase by the couch. "Like it might be interesting. But too _quiet_ , I think, and I didn't want to be committed forever. There's always room to make that choice again later, but very little chance to take it back."

"Which brings you here."

Ash laughs. "Yes, horribly in debt, but worth it. There's no taking back debt either, but at least it can be paid off, more or less. Eventually." He kisses me lightly like it means nothing at all, which it probably doesn't. "If you had that choice, what would you have picked? Any Word in Hell."

Which is something my partner asked me once, and I can't remember what I answered him, back then. "Freedom," I say, "except even if they let Calabim pick, we can't have that one."

"I can hardly see why anyone would pick otherwise, if they could," Ash said, "but people do it all the time. So what about the other Words?"

I try to picture myself back with Fire again. The place I was made, in the image of my first Prince, who gave me away over and over again. It doesn't even feel like something I'd want, anymore, so maybe I'm in the right place after all. "Theft, maybe. The Marches part of Nightmares would be fun, but I can't imagine dealing with their style of work, and Fate is...like you said. Too quiet." And because this seems to be a night for dangerous conversations, I ask, "What if you could pick from the other side? What would you choose there?"

Ash grins like I'm being daring. Maybe I am. "If I say Trade, that's cheating. Destiny's probably just as boring as Fate, so... Dreams? All that Marches work, I bet I'd enjoy it. Making up whatever you want out of the nothing around you, and dealing with happy people having happy dreams. Maybe it'd get old after a while, but I don't have a lot of information on those Words. What about you?"

"Hypothetically speaking," I say, with that token burning a metaphorical hole in my pocket, "Trade."

"Really?" He sits back, perched on my knees in a way that ought to be absurd but is only adorable when he does it. "Not the Wind?"

"Those idiots? No. If I wanted to clown around and cause random trouble people, I could pick Dark Humor. Trade's...reliable. You know where you stand with them." Maybe I shouldn't have brought this up at all. "Besides, they could use some more security experts, because the Wind is _clearly_ not giving them enough advice, or I wouldn't have been able to swipe that artifact from one of their Tethers last year."

"You have the best adventures," Ash says. And now we're distracted back to safe topics. Good. He slips off my knees. "Half a sec, and I'll grab you another beer. You should finish that one before it gets warm."

I pick up the bottle, which has been dripping water in a messy ring onto the expensive coffee table, since I didn't think to use a coaster. Rude of me, and he never even said anything. It's enough to make a man nervous. "Are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?"

"Maybe," he calls back from across the room. "Is it working?"

I down the rest of the first bottle. "Maybe." By which I guess I mean yes.


	6. An Interlude, In Which I Decide To Take Certain Risks, In Full Knowledge Of The Potential Consequences

For a variety of reasons, some more selfish than others (and a few looking into the long-term potential), Ash made sure to detach his guest from the couch, and any subsequent drinking, after two bottles each. He was reasonably certain that Leo was not the sort to follow up with _I never meant to do that_ , but he didn't want to risk it.

"You realize," Leo said, fingers tangled in Ash's and letting himself be led into the bedroom, "that this is a terrible idea."

"I don't see how." Ash closed the door behind them, though there was no need. It was a symbolic act, one that meant something in Shal-Mari where so much happened in alleys and corridors and the enormous public spaces, where anyone might do whatever they want to anyone who couldn't object. Privacy meant something. Every time he closed a door, was allowed to shut a door behind him and turn the lock, that meant something.

"Every time I get in bed with someone, it goes wrong," Leo said, as if he were still trying to convince himself of this.

"The bed isn't mandatory," Ash said, and sat down on it himself. Waited for the Calabite to sit down beside him, which he knew would happen. Some people could have a Need in their eyes and turn down the offer, but most didn't. People wanted what they wanted, and in that situation, yes was always easier than no. "Though it tends to make things more comfortable. Nothing's mandatory, you know. Plans aren't promises, they're just _plans_ , the sort of thing we might like to try if we get around to it."

"And my partner," Leo said, with a crooked smile, "will not be happy."

Ash tugged the Calabite's jacket down from his shoulders, down the arms, left it pooled there behind the man's back and covering his hands. "If he finds out."

"If he finds out."

"I have no reason to tell him. Would you feel obliged?"

And Leo actually hesitated before answering, as if he couldn't even keep his own secrets without an act of will. "Not obliged," he said, "and why should I be?" He untangled a hand from the pile of fabric to scrub through his hair, which was a brown so ordinary Ash found it fascinating. Everything about the man's vessel was ordinary, a washed-out and slightly reduced version of the average and assumed normal. "Why he even _cares_ I couldn't say, except for--oh, it doesn't matter. It's none of his business."

"Exactly." Ash watched the decision be made, and decided that Leo didn't even know that was the moment of decision. That was how most people were. They wanted to be argued into something, but they were convinced as soon as they accepted the premises of the person they were arguing with, and everything after that was detail, formality, letting the decision work its way from unconscious to conscious thought. The satisfaction that came of having made up one's mind was a delight, and Ash wouldn't take that away from a friend for the world. "Why shouldn't you go take what you want? Isn't that what Theft is all about?"

"You would think," Leo said. "But in practice it's more about taking what other people want, or what I need right away. Which we don't keep for long." Which brought up a new Need in him, a nebulous desire for some sort of...object permanence, Ash wanted to call it, the owning of anything which could remain entirely his and not vanish or be destroyed.

"If you want to leave anything here," Ash said, the off-hand voice he used when making offers that he wanted someone to accept, and didn't want them to know his own interest in (though he suspected, from the small change in focus, that Leo was seeing right through that), "I can keep it stashed somewhere. I _do_ have a closet, and a safe. Though it'd have to be small and not too dangerous. No cars, pets, or explosives."

"At reasonable rates?" Leo asked.

Ash unwound the scarf he wore, and tossed it onto the bed. It made a pretty picture there, red against black, and he rather wished Leo would turn far enough to see that and admire the contrast. Though he didn't expect the Calabite to admire his decor, not exactly, any more than expected to make an impact on him with fashion choices. He'd figured out within ten minutes of the first corporeal meeting that the Calabite paid more attention to how people moved than what they looked like, to how a space was laid out rather than its colors. "Very reasonable. First month free, subsequent months at low cost. I know you can't take much with you on the road."

"And if I ever figure out what I'd want to stash somewhere at those rates, with no knowing when I'd be back to get it, I may take you up on that." Leo pulled his hands out of the jacket, folded his arms as if he didn't know what to do with them. His expression was wry, as if this were an incidental conversational topic. What he Needed said otherwise.

"Books," Ash said. "If I get to read them, you can keep them here rent-free." He set two fingers in the center of Leo's chest, and pushed lightly. Only a suggestion, because it was always polite to suggest, ask, hypothesize, never to _command_ unless a debt allowed it. "I still don't understand why Jane went back to Rochester at the end. One mystical cry for help in the middle of the night isn't enough to make up for what he did."

Leo leaned back, propped up on his elbows, exactly as the request was intended to suggest. And what a pleasure it was, to communicate with someone who could take a hint, who didn't make demands or wait for demands to be made. (Ash did not much like making demands. Those always led to hard feelings afterward, no matter how reasonable he was in making them.) "What, you thought she should've stayed with the missionary?"

"No," Ash said, in sudden indignation at the very thought. Which he translated into following Leo down on the bed, lying beside him where he could look up at the man's face, shoulders, the curve of his back. "What a _drip_. She should've struck out on her own, and done her own thing."

"In that time period? Not a lot of options available. Playing nanny to a stranger's bastard child was one of the best jobs she could have reached for, with any chance of success. And look how that turned out." Which was the Calabite in the mode of informed opinion, and that was ideal. When Leo started talking about what he knew, he did not look at the closed door as if he were considering the wisdom of opening it again. "She wasn't going to do better than Rochester, when it comes to long-term stability and opportunity to follow her own interests."

"Whatever those were," Ash said. "He kept his wife locked in an attic. That's just not right." He read through a sequence of Needs as he spoke, aware it made him sound slightly distracted. Well, Leo wouldn't take that as reason to get angry. Or might even assume it was distraction from more physical reasons, if he was lucky, though he wasn't about to count on that. And then he found the Need (which was almost never too different from want, whatever some Sisters claimed) and followed it through to his conclusion. Which had him climbing onto the Calabite's lap and smiling down at him.

The hook caught, and Ash let it go before the Geas he'd sworn to could do more than hint at incipient dissonance. It was a delightful sensation, to have something and have it disappear, like the tiniest bite of baklava melting in his mouth. The acquisition was almost better than the keeping.

"I'll admit the wife in the attic was a character flaw," Leo said. "But it wouldn't be much of a story if two perfect people fell in love and didn't have any difficulty in their way, or personal flaws to overcome."

"A wife in the attic," Ash said, "is more than a character flaw." He sat back on his heels between the other man's legs, and ran through Needs (he'd never seen that one before, an idle wish for carefully moderated revenge on some old enemy, but it wasn't relevant) until he found that the desire to have him in close had reappeared. Yes, the acquisition was always the best part. The moment of fulfillment. Holding and calling in debts afterwards was just business, a portfolio expansion, subject to careful planning and long-term goals. Useful, but no real joy in it.

"You know," Leo said, with a fascinating level of care to each word, "Theft does kidnappings too. Both the kind that involve holding people for ransom and simply running off with people bound as servants, temporary or otherwise. Especially with the Djinn."

"Have you ever?" Ash asked.

"Kidnapped anyone?"

Ash nodded, and sat on his heels, waiting. Watching how that changed what the Calabite wanted. (It nearly took his breath away when he saw his own regard in Leo's eyes as something that man Needed. Well. That he might yet be able to provide.)

"Not exactly," Leo said, fingers scraping against the black bedspread as if he meant to dig silently through it. "I ran off with some kid once, but she didn't have any living relatives left worth a damn, so she was probably better off with me. Which is some sort of indictment of the social services in this country right there. Of course, Zhune tags humans all the time for temporary service."

"Yes," Ash said, "but I can't hold that against you. It's not your fault if your partner is a terrible person."

"He's not terrible," Leo said, "he's just...being a Djinn. Of Theft. It's what he's supposed to do."

It would be impolite to call out a friend on a lie, and improper to pretend he believed such a blatant one. Ash settled on a properly skeptical expression and a noncommittal noise. Because that was doing nothing to get him closer to filling the Needs he'd picked up, he bent forward and planted his hands on either side of the Calabite. The give of the mattress tilted him in, until his cheek rested on Leo's chest. "So long as he keeps you happy," Ash said lightly, and felt the tension in those muscles through the fabric, "I suppose it doesn't matter. But he gets charged full price if he wants any storage."

"You're not allowed to steal me," Leo said, which meant he'd misstepped. Pushed too hard, when subtlety was called for, though no one could claim he'd _lied_ about any of that, or that he'd taken advantage of...anything. Anyone. And the man's voice didn't carry any real note of offense, only wry acceptance of things that couldn't be changed. (Which wasn't true, and wasn't worth arguing over yet. Not until Leo was willing to accept certain premises and argue from the right starting point.) "Theft takes it personally. Besides, what would you do with a full-time Calabite? Or even a part-time one. Drinking your beer, breaking your sound system, taking all the shine off your furniture..."

"I could think of a few things," Ash said. He sat back because he loved watching the desire come up again in those eyes. Touch and stop touching, move in close and move away, and every time he was Needed again. He was running the risk of looking too deep, turning his resonance to headaches and fuzz if he kept looking so deeply for himself, but oh, it was worth it. He kissed Leo sweetly and lightly, the opening move that said Freedom instead of Lust, and let the hook form, dissolve away on his lips in the same moment as his awareness of it. "Would you do me a favor?" he murmured.

The tiny hesitation showed that Leo hadn't yet forgotten he was speaking with a Lilim, and then remembered the promise. "Probably."

"Ask me a question," Ash said, and begin unbuttoning the Calabite's shirt. Which was, despite all reputation and stereotype, a tidy gray button-down shirt with only a hint of rumpling, and one buttonhole fraying on the right cuff. "Though if you start quizzing me on the themes of _Wuthering Heights_ I'll have to confess something terrible about resorting to Wikipedia for a plot summary, because that one was not to my taste at all."

"I won't hold it against you," Leo said. "There was one book for this survey course--" The way his breath changed at the touch of fingers was different from the way his breath changed when some thought caught him, and that was the latter. Some old reminder of hurt, which was why he needed a change of topic. To think about something which wouldn't upset him. "Never mind. Question. Sure. Can you read your own Needs?"

"Yes," Ash said, "though it's...odd. Like trying to see the back of your own head. Similarly, having a mirror can help to focus for the attempt, though it's not strictly necessary." Having finished with buttons, he sat back to consider his next move, and wait for that wanting to surface in the man's eyes again. "Some of us don't like it, because that can be too much self-awareness. Easier to turn down any favor you're not willing to pay for, rather than be precisely aware of how much you want something. Some of us like to know where we could get hooked, or only like to know what our goals are. Who wants to drift through life without a purpose? And you can't go after your purpose until you know what it is."

"No," Leo said, "I suppose not." And he shrugged out of his shirt in one irritable motion, as if it was in the way of a newly discovered goal. "Your turn for questions, unless you want another."

"I'd like another," Ash said, and he knew his own tone. Sweet and bright, not as artificial as the one he used when a Geas was called in and he was told to behave for some sister or stranger. He tugged the hem of his sweater up. "Lend me hand?"

That was the premise that had to be accepted. Movement in both directions, to take and receive in unequal measure but such that there was an exchange. There was no such thing as an equal trade, and no such thing as a conversation worth having without something going both ways. Even the payment of a debt, the one-sided _Do what I say_ of a Geas settling down, was only the continuation of a conversation that had started with movement in the opposite direction.

The Calabite reached in and pulled Ash's sweater up, caught the shirt up in the movement and pulled both off him. Just clumsy enough a move to seem unpracticed, and Ash wondered if it _was_ , if that Djinn never asked for such. That was the problem with the Binders. They tried to take and take and keep, and never realized that the best way to hold onto someone was by the fingertips. Between the lips. A touch and a taste and a hook laid down without so much as a string to tie it back, the back and forth of favors in each direction. An unlocked door and a kiss farewell. Tie a creature down and it would beat itself bloody to escape, chew off its leg to escape the trap. Or huddle down in a corner and accept the chains, and who wanted to keep any such thing?

That was the problem with Djinn. They ruined what they kept if they kept it too long. Anyone worth keeping would come back on their own. Freedom understood that, and for all the friendship between the Words, perhaps Theft never would.

"Tell me," Leo said, his hands full of gray sweater and teal shirt and apparently no idea of what to do with either, "why did you end up male, when most Lilim are female?"

"It seemed appropriate," Ash said. He took his clothes from the Calabite's hands, and tossed them onto the ground. It would be a shame if Leo should feel awkward in the midst of too much order. "Which is a terrible answer, but I don't have much better. We're not all imitations of Mother. For one, we're not human. It's only natural that we should vary." He was lying, not enough to feel ashamed over it, not enough that the man would notice. Of course he was male, because that's what Syntyche had wanted, when he was young and impressionable. (He was still young and impressionable, but more himself than he used to be. Less what other people wanted him to be.) "Do you mind? About the vessel, or anything."

"No," Leo said. "Vessels are all..." He flicked a dismissive gesture. "Human bodies. Since they're not the true form, the details aren't very important."

"I think they're important," Ash said. "What sorts of true forms do you like? Or do you not care about those?"

"Balseraphs," Leo said, with a quick smile that hid another secret. His eyes told some of that story, a Need to see some Balseraph of old acquaintance. Ash looked deeper, and found a fascinating tangle of desires. Kiss and kill and flee and meet and never see again and never let go, old Needs that barely registered as more than tiny, insignificant favors. Nothing he could fulfill. "What about you?"

"I like all sorts of forms." Ash considered the form before him, expression and posture and tension, and laid his hands on Leo's shoulders. "Mostly the Lilim-shaped ones. Impudites and Calabim and humans, some Habbalah if they're more artistic than grotesque. Balseraphs are..." He twined his fingers through Leo's hair, and waited for hands to settle down on his hips before continuing. "Interesting to look at? But not to my taste in that sense. Djinn, almost never."

"And never, ever Shedim," Leo said.

"Shedim are inescapable," Ash said. "Because sometimes they can pay. And sometimes debts are called in. But they're never attractive, unless they've hired a Habbalite as well to make you think otherwise for a while." He watched the Calabite's jaw set. That line of tension along the muscle at the side, that told him what he never would have dared ask. "Which isn't as bad as needing to pretend, in some ways. Easier to get through."

"I thought," Leo said carefully, which really was rather sweet of him, "that your work wouldn't have taken you that way."

"My work never did. But it's impossible to live in Shal-Mari and not pick up some debts, unless you never leave a locked room. Maybe not even then, because other people can pick locks. Or sometimes you want a favor enough to not care that you can't place any limits on the price, beyond its scope." He let his chin rest on Leo's shoulder, and closed his eyes for a moment. There was no looking into Needs for that angle, and it was interesting. To feel the reaction from skin to skin, and try to interpret from that alone. "Isn't it so much nicer to get to the corporeal, and do what we like here?"

"Much nicer," Leo said. "When we can."

Ash let his eyes stay closed a moment longer. Until it was the right instant to draw back, open his eyes, and look for that _I want you here_ Need. He sifted down through layers of irrelevance to pick up on details. Specifics. He could guess, there could be entertainment in guessing, but the hook never caught unless he knew.

"We can," Ash said, "and we are, and I'd like to take off the rest of our clothes and drag you down on the bed and get not _terribly_ creative, because I haven't got the equipment for creative and I don't think you're interested in that anyway. How do you feel about this plan for the rest of the night?"

"I can work with this plan," Leo said. "More straightforward than most of mine, but that's probably for the best." He twisted about a half turn, looking over the bed. "...how attached are you to the bedspread? And the sheets. Because there's the distinct possibility that they're going to come off the worse for wear if we get anywhere."

Ash did not much like that _if_. Still, the basic premise had been accepted. All that remained was quibbling over minor details. "They're replaceable," he said smoothly, though he wasn't entirely sure that was true for the bedspread, which had come from a crafter online and cost somewhat more than was appropriate. Still, when he took someone into his bedroom, they ought to be impressed. Those who noticed such things, which were not, alas, Calabim. "Unless you really _want_ to start up against a wall..."

"No," Leo said, "I'm good here." And his eyes said _Stay_ on so many levels that Ash almost forgot to let the hook melt away, let it sit there for a second and a breath until the Geas began to burn at him.

Well, as Leo would say, never mind _that_. Ash tumbled the Calabite down onto his back, the push and shove that only worked on someone willing to follow that lead. Then he settled on top of the man, skin to skin across an irregular plane of two vessels that were, in his estimation, not that far off what true celestial forms would be. And wasn't it simpler and better to do this as so? No risk of more intimacy than someone wanted, with Forces locked away in bodies. Nearly as much sensation. No tattered wings to deal with, no horns, only the essentials of bodies.

He kept to the simplest and lightest of the basics. Nothing to make a Calabite who apparently found the whole nature of Shal-Mari unsettling further unsettled. Kisses that didn't stray far below the neck, nips that wouldn't leave a bruise, nothing more than petting with fingertips and the heel of his palms. And every time he lifted his face to watch Leo's eyes, he looked for a sign of a new Need. Even the ones that had nothing to do with sex, nothing to do with _him_ , told him something about his newest friend.

Still. He did like the ones about him the best. Ash did not find much interest in mirrors, beyond their use for checking on how well fashion and appearance were being performed. He knew himself too well to care much about staring at his own image. But to see himself in the eyes of an admirer, now that was better than pretty compliments mouthed insincerely, better than even requests and offers of payment. Anyone could have any sort of reason for that sort of thing, but Needs never lied.

"We need more clothes off," Ash said, when the right Need drifted into his view. He timed the hesitation, and did not let it resolve into an answer. "Lend me a hand with these jeans?" Which, as he expected, solved the problem nicely. In shapes like these, a place like this, nudity implied vulnerability. Offer before demanding, lead by example, and why was it so hard for some people to figure this out? Offer a taste of weakness deliberately, one of your own choosing, and those worth making the offer to would respond so well. It was obvious. And yet so few in Shal-Mari ever tried that, when they could wheedle and intimidate and steal instead.

Leo sat up, and tried to pry the top button open. "Hell, do you have to _sew_ these on? Are you sure they open here?"

"They're skinny jeans," Ash said patiently. He leaned back on his hands, and watched someone else do the work. The curve of Leo's neck, the way his shoulders and back read of intent, and oh, the _potential_ , all of it made a picture he liked. That he might like to keep that way for a while. "They're supposed to be tight."

"You have no idea how close I am to just resonating through this--" Leo made a small noise of satisfaction as he worked the top button free. "This would be easier if you'd just move--like that."

"You're the expert in detaching people from their possessions," Ash said. He would've hooked a foot around the Calabite, drawn him in and down, but it was the wrong moment. Besides, it would've made his pants nearly impossible to remove. It was more fun to wait for the other man to mutter and tug and push him to the side, in trying to get them off. "Consider it a worked example of the theory."

"You know, despite Theft's reputation, you'd be surprised at how infrequently I need to steal anyone's pants," Leo said, "much less when they're still attached to a person." He yanked fabric down to Ash's knees, and frowned. "...you're sure I can't resonate them off."

"Much as the idea of the resulting visual delights me, I don't want to be picking denim fluff out of the carpet for the next week," Ash said. He lifted a foot and wiggled his toes. "Almost there. I have faith in your ability to free me of this bondage."

"Usually I free people through exploding things," Leo muttered, but set to working the jeans the rest of the way off.

The urge appeared, once Ash was freed of fabric, to pose. The sort of innocent sprawl that looked so incidental, and caught the eye in the right way. And he did not want to risk it, did not want to seem...artificial. It would ruin something entirely sincere. Instead, he said, "My turn, if you don't mind?" and waited for that answering smile before he set to getting Leo properly naked. Which was almost too easy to do, especially with the terrible cheap jeans the man wore; no wonder the Calabite thought everything fell apart around him, if he bought cheap off-brand clothing. If he thought the man would accept presents--well. There probably wasn't time for a shopping trip anyway.

There, nothing left between them but their own vessels (and Ash had no desire to have it otherwise if that were an option), he laid the Calabite back down, slid on top of him, and read so deep into Need that the Symphony almost fuzzed around him. Like eyestrain after peering too close at a file in a dim room, some ancient archivist's spidery handwriting barely legible on the crumbling paper, but oh, the message came through. "I know what you want," Ash said, and blinked rapidly to try to clear his head again. Nothing out of sync yet, but he ought to be more careful. "Do you know?"

"No," Leo said. "I don't know. Not exactly." Which was more honesty than he had excepted, and it was delightful. Delicious. That one moment of weakness he'd offered earlier, repaid in full.

"Then I'll show you," Ash said.

And he let each hook slip away as it formed, like honey dissolving in his mouth.


	7. In Which A Petty Argument Occurs

Ash's shower has terrible water pressure and irregular temperature maintenance. Which is almost reassuring, because otherwise I would start to worry about the excessively perfect nature of this visit. All the more so that when I'm dry and dressed again, I find him waiting on that tiny wrought iron table at his balcony with coffee made for both of us and a plate of pastries.

There is something wrong with this kid.

"I didn't know what sort of danishes you like," Ash says, one foot tucked up under him and his silly thin scarf flapping in the wind. The spring's still early enough that dawn's cold and gray, and I've brought my jacket onto the balcony with me to fight back against that. The sunrise painting all those clouds a spectacular array of reds and oranges is also suggesting that we've got storms heading in soon. "Any strong preferences?"

"It hasn't come up much," I say, and pick out one that turns out to be filled with strawberries. "I'm not that hard to please."

Ash grins at that. Which I think has replaced some comment he might otherwise make, because he nibbles at his chosen pastry, and then licks his fingers individually clean of icing, and I really ought to be thinking about how I need to go meet Zhune in a few hours without any of this so much in my head by then that it comes through in something I say.

There's nothing particularly exciting on this balcony. A sunrise and breakfast, we're not even talking, and I don't mind. Which is nice. It's been a while since I've been anywhere that wasn't in the middle of working on a job and didn't feel like there was something wrong that had to be dealt with, somewhere else I ought to be.

"Watch this," Ash says, and tilts his plate sideways to pour crumbs into his hands. He walks to the far corner of the balcony, and holds out his hand. Then he whistles, a quick little sound that reminds me oddly of that one time Sean started speaking the language of angels. The sounds are nothing alike, just whistling here and some weird attunement for that Mercurian, but there's the memory of it. I'll blame that on the oddity of the last few hours.

A pigeon like any one of a million others in this city spirals down from the sky, and lands in Ash's hand. It turns a beady eye my way, and when I don't make any sudden moves, goes back to ignoring me in favor of eating the crumbs in his palm.

"Okay," I say, "I'm impressed. How long did that take to set up?" 

"Weeks," Ash says. He holds his hand still until the pigeon finishes, and when it wings away, without so much as a grateful expression, brushes his hand clean on his pants. "Patience and bribery can get you almost anything in life."

"Here I thought all a man needed was lockpicks and a fast car." I pick up my cup of coffee, and notice right before the first sip that he's drawn a picture in the foam. A spread-winged bird of some sort, and rather pretty as temporary art goes. "You don't worry about Kyriotates?"

"Never," he says, settling back down across from me. "Not until I start seeing Needs in a pigeon's eyes."

There's nothing in this breakfast that's exactly to my taste, and I finish everything he's set before me, because...well, why not? He has a point. Why not be considerate, even if it's a bit of a lie. We get along fine this way. There's nothing wrong with just--asking sometimes, or offering, and not making every exchange between two people full of power struggles and unspoken messages.

Sunrise has come, and he's allowed to hook me again. If he feels like it. I suspect he won't. I want to believe that he won't, because I want to believe everything he's told me so far about friendship and what that means to him. It's _stupid_ of me to believe a word of it--one long day in Shal-Mari was enough to give me the rundown on how demons from that place work--and sometimes I need to do something a little stupid for my own peace of mind. 

Maybe that's why Zhune likes playing risky games and taking the hardest jobs, too. Proving to himself that he still can, after failing at it a few times. You live long enough and you fail at everything once or twice. Can't let that scare you off trying again, or you end up frozen in terror.

"I was thinking--" Ash stops in the middle of his sentence, and stands up abruptly. "That's not very polite," he says tightly, stalking off the balcony into the condo. 

By the time I've caught up with him, what he heard and I didn't resolves into Zhune stepping through the front door. Yes, I'd agree that it's impolite to pick the lock on someone's door when--

"You could knock," Ash says, standing directly in front of Zhune, hands curled up at his sides. "Or call ahead. Did you not have my phone number? Because I could give it to you. Text. _Email_. Shouting from the hallway. There are so many ways to communicate a request to enter instead of walking inside."

Zhune looks right over his head to me. "We're leaving," he says.

"You said ten o'clock." I shove my hands in my pockets, and amble nearer to the both of them. Not exactly to the door yet. "What's the sudden rush?"

"The rush," Zhune says, biting off each word, "is that we are leaving. Now." And he outright blinks when Ash pokes him in the chest.

"This is my apartment," the Lilim says. "Whatever Word you happen to serve, you don't walk in without permission. It's impolite."

"Lucifer forbid I should be rude," Zhune says, his eyes turning towards Ash at last. Which I should probably be worried by, but even he wouldn't call down the sort of trouble that'd hit us if he did anything too terrible--and obviously his fault--to a proper official ally. "Why don't you get back to whatever it is that you do in your exciting, busy life here?"

Which is unusually testy for my Djinn, to the point of being strange. He doesn't harass people he doesn't care about, or bother arguing back against them. Especially ones who are no threat. He ignores them and moves on.

"I will," Ash says, "once I get an apology. Because I thought that a locked door was a fairly clear message, as these things go. Or were you trying to make a point about something? Maybe you could spell it out for me."

And I don't think that's normal either.

"If you Need explanations," Zhune says, with downright sarcastic emphasis, "maybe you could find another Tempter to help you with the challenging parts. Ask her to use small words."

"Here I thought you didn't care enough to harass me," Ash says, with a sweetness that you'd have to be an idiot not to hear the ice in. "But you took the time to break in, just for me. That's adorable."

"And having spent that time," Zhune says, "I haven't even left for you." He stares at me directly, and that is the expression that precedes actual manhandling. "Leo. It is time to go."

"Send me email," I say to Ash before he can get another word out, "when you've read the book. Or if you have any questions."

The Lilim snorts. It's a surprisingly delicate sound. "It was good to see you," he says to me, turning away from Zhune. "As always. Keep in touch."

"I will."

On which note I get out of that condo before more argument can occur, and trust Zhune to follow behind me without getting into an actual fight.

"What a fussy little Tempter," Zhune says, before the elevator door's even shut behind us.

"And you call _me_ a brat." I slouch back in a corner, and consider the way he's standing. That level of unhappy does not come from being bored without me, or even being Djinn levels of clingy. Probably best that I not voice my suspicion that Zhune walked into that condo Needing an argument, or to win one, and was given exactly that. "What's up? Complication with the last job?"

"No," Zhune says, and hammers in the floor for the lobby with the heel of his palm. "We've been summoned by a Marquis, and she does not like being kept waiting."

That's the worst news I've heard all week. "You could've said that."

"And now I have."

#

In the car--he's picked up a new one since last night--Zhune keeps the keys, and tells me, "Swap vessels."

"I'm out of Essence." I pull the seatbelt on, and try to remember who the nobility of Theft even is. Not really something I've paid much attention to; that's all Hell politics, which I've never cared about, or people with their own dedicated staff who don't need any of us to give them help with their projects. "So what does this Marquis want?"

Zhune puts a hand to the back of my neck, and passes two Essence over. "Swap," he says. "Whatever she wants, we give it to her. And we do not want her to see your backup vessel, because if we can't give her what she wants, she will be--angry."

"And we won't like her when she's angry, right." I switch to the other vessel, and then have to adjust the seatbelt for my new height. In some places, we'd be rocketing away from the disturbance on the highway; here, we're crawling through traffic already. Taking the subway might be faster if we're trying to get through the city.

"The last time I worked for her," Zhune says, and he's back to that careful precision that worries me, because this is not _normal_ for how he discusses our jobs, "Henry made a mistake. Which anyone might have. She set someone to find him in Trauma, and send her a message when he woke. So that he would be awake when she ripped Forces off him. You do not want to upset her, and if she's calling for me to lend her assistance, I imagine she is already...unhappy."

"Lovely. I'll be polite."

"Try 'quiet'." Zhune shoots a glance at me sideways, which for once doesn't result in vehicular collisions while he's driving. The traffic is not our friend, except for giving us time to talk on the way over, and maybe that's why he picked driving after all. "In fact, don't say anything at all unless she addresses you first. Don't mention Henry. Or Technology."

"What's wrong with Technology?"

"Chaixin holds the Word of Industrial Espionage," Zhune says. "The previous demon to hold that Word was her partner, and suffered an accident when working with the Vapulans. It's a sore point."

"Ah. So. Not an old friend, this one." I watch traffic, and fold my arms across my chest. "Old enemy?"

"A Marquis does not have enemies among ordinary Servitors," Zhune says. As if "ordinary" applies to him, among the demons of Theft, though I suppose the lack of distinctions might fool some people into thinking so. "It's beneath her."

Which is damn near to a yes. "I can be quiet."

"Really?"

"I'm contumacious, Zhune, not stupid. Mouthing off to a Marquis isn't on my to-do list for the day. Is there anything I _should_ do to get the two of us through this job alive and with the same number of Forces at the end as we had when we started?"

"Think of something," Zhune says, "and keep it to yourself."

Well. That's not so hard, now, is it.


	8. An Interlude, In Which I Contemplate The Benefits Of Abolishing The Aristocracy

The man who opened the door wore the uniform of a hotel employee. He looked Zhune up and down thoughtfully, then stepped out of the way. "She'll see you in the next room," he said in Helltongue, and closed the door behind the two of them. "If you would be so kind?"

A Shedite, said the odds and the presentation. Chaixin had always preferred those, with Lilim and Impudites filling out most of the remaining slots in her roster of servants. Or employees, as Daosheng had chosen to call them, and Chaixin...might follow that terminology. There was no knowing, when he hadn't met her since her acquisition of the Word. Had stayed off the side of the world where she resided, with the both of them more at ease for this fact.

If he had known Chaixin was on this continent, he would have dragged his partner off to England for a few months until she left.

The hotel suite, three rooms and more than even a Marquis needed for a temporary meeting place on the corporeal plane, lay in shambles akin to that of his Prince's waiting rooms after a bad day. The Shedite returned, having finished his door-keeping services, to gathering up the fragments of blasted furniture and heaping them in tidy stacks. The holes in the walls would need more than tidying to repair. The Calabite behind him was already stepping carefully and quietly, properly nervous in such an environment, though Zhune could have told her--might tell Leo later--that this was a better sign than to find the room in its pristine state. The first bout of temper was already over, and there might be enough of a pause before the next to leave safely.

And there might not. He made sure to be the first to step through the door into the room where Chaixin waited.

She stood with her back to the door, hands clasped behind her, and stared out a window that was as yet unbroken. There she waited in silence, her back describing a perfect line of confidence, while he and his partner waited in turn.

When she turned to look at them, Zhune saw that she wore the same vessel as the last time they had spoken. Or perhaps an imitation of it, but he doubted that she had spent any time in Trauma. Such indignities seldom came to the true nobility. "You were not my first pick," she said, and did not bother to use English or Helltongue so that the second Calabite in the room could understand her. "Who is dead. Nor my second, who is in Trauma, nor my third, who is engaged in a task set to her by our Prince. Thus I find myself about to rely on _your_ skills, once again. Do you believe this will end more fortunately than on the previous occasion?"

"One might hope," Zhune said, matching her language and exceeding her in evenness of tone.

"One might," Chaixin said. She sniffed, and dropped down into a chair with three legs remaining, which tottered under her weight but remained upright with the support of the wall behind it. "Is that a partner, or a babysitting project?"

"Partner," Zhune said, and wondered if she was working on insufficient information, or only testing to see if he would lie to her.

"How is this one crazy?" She cut the air with her hand when he was about to speak. "They are all crazy, Zhune, every single one you pick, and I have no interest in hearing protests otherwise. She understands none of this, that much is clear, so you may speak freely. Do tell me that she has none of Henry's problems, nor Silje's. I suppose the latter would be difficult, since she must not be a Shedite. Impudite?"

"Calabite," Zhune said. "She makes things explode."

"That is not crazy," Chaixin said, and gave an impatient sigh. "That is merely being a Calabite."

"Beyond what one might consider usual for the Band. She sets buildings on fire while standing inside them. I stopped visiting any friends who dealt in weapons, because she would walk away with another case of explosives, and find an excuse to use them." He might have given a more accurate rendition of his partner's personal quirks, such as a vicious commitment to revenge when slighted, but to point that out in front of a woman Hellbent on personal revenge might be unwise. The best known of Leo's escapades would support the answer he had given, and that ought to suffice.

"Noisy," Chaixin murmured, "but I can work with that. She still has that useful attunement from Fire?" Which put the lie to any earlier question. 

"She does." Zhune had learned about trick questions in conversations years before he was first allowed on the corporeal plane, much less a part of Theft. These merely annoyed him, and reminded him to stay wary.

"That may be convenient." The Marquis switched to Helltongue. "Sit down, and listen. I only intend to explain this once, and the only reason I'm bothering to explain at all is that I'm told the two of you are clever enough that additional information may make you more competent."

There were no chairs left whole in the room but the one Chaixin had chosen. Leo glanced around, and then chose a spot on the floor to sit cross-legged, hands on her knees and eyes full of bright attentiveness that only a stranger would think to trust. For lack of better options, Zhune sat on the ground beside his partner with what dignity he could muster. It was a petty move, and did no credit to a Marquis that she should inflict it on them.

"I had," Chaixin said, with slight emphasis on the verb tense, "an excellent plan laid in motion against Lightning. It was a beautiful plan, exactly as complex as was necessary. It was due to complete itself one month from now, after an investment of nearly five years. A hook here and a friendship there, a few moments of corruption, and I would have _owned_ that project." She opened a hand before her, and contemplated its lack of contents. "Then the War decided to play at theft of ideas, and destroyed everything in under an hour." She closed that hand slowly, and a hole burst in the ceiling overhead, dropping a cloud of plaster between them. "And people call Theft reckless."

Zhune waited, because to react would only draw unwanted attention.

"Now," she said, her eyes focusing on them again, "I want this problem solved. There is no recovery of the plan, but there are ways to steal some vestiges of it back. Here are your priorities, in order. First: the acquisition of as much data as possible from that project. Second: to leave those who ruined my plans with nothing to show for their time. Third: to leave those same in destruction and embarrassment. Fourth: the acquisition of any equipment from the project that you may detach without drawing followers with it. Fifth: that if anyone from Lightning or the War should question your involvement, you point them back at Technology. Who were in position to take all the blame for what I meant to do, and will now otherwise continue unscathed."

She drummed her fingers on one knee, and thought for a moment longer. "You will have noticed that the priority list does not include anything such as your personal safety. You will do whatever is necessary to complete this task for me. If you should lose vessels or Forces, or take dissonance, and still complete significant goals, then I will have you repaired on my behalf. Complete enough goals, and there may even be a reward. If you should fail, and have preserved yourself in doing so, I will _fix that_."

The plaster powder hanging in the air trembled with her voice.

"Now," she said mildly, "I believe that covers the basics. Guo will have all the details you need on where to find the Warriors responsible for the raid. I expect you are capable of providing your own equipment, though if you feel otherwise, do tell me now. Are there any questions?"

That was another one of those trick questions, an obvious one. And yet there at his side, Leo raised her hand.

Chaixin considered that hand for a moment, and then pointed. "Go ahead."

"Is there anyone in particular in Technology that you'd like us to pin it on?" Leo asked. "Names, or even addresses..." She shrugged one shoulder, returning her hands to rest on her knees, as if she sat in a classroom and had a question about a new assignment.

"Do you expect that to come up?" asked the Marquis.

"Not necessarily," Leo said, "but when the interrogators start breaking fingers, they love getting details. You can send them after nearly anyone if you sound unhappy enough about giving out the name. And the War doesn't have Seraphim available to fact-check the results."

Zhune did not like the way the Marquis considered his partner now, or how she was looking at the other Calabite as if she had discovered a person, rather than a slightly tool that followed behind him. "What a lovely idea," she said. "I'll have a list written up for you. Do you have any other questions?"

Leo hesitated a moment, then shook her head. So she was clever enough, and enough in control of herself still, to know to stop when she was ahead. Good. It would have been embarrassing to need to slap a hand over her mouth and drag her away before Chaixin could take offense.

"Then you may as well get to it," said the Marquis. She rose from her chair, which was signal that they could stand as well. Zhune had to fight the urge to yank Leo up when she took her time in standing, the urge to pull her out of this Marquis' presence before--anything could happen. It was never safe to be in a room with this one, and more so now that Daosheng's tempering influence was gone. (Daosheng had been no less fond of revenge, but more forgiving of mistakes. Perhaps that had been her downfall.) "Take as long as you need, and give me a call. Once the job is done."

Zhune backed out of the room, while the Marquis turned to contemplate her window again. And he was perfectly in control. He did not drag his partner along, and did not flee the place until the Shedite had passed along the promised information.


	9. In Which A Plan Develops

"I told you to keep quiet," Zhune says, the instant the car door's closed behind me. He's driving again, but for once, I don't care. The Shedite gave us a haphazard stack of papers, and I need time to sort through them to get some sense out of what's ahead of us. Can't do that while I'm driving; it'd make me slightly more likely to smash into things than Zhune's normal driving style is.

"Unless she spoke to me first, and she did ask for questions." I get the papers propped on my knees. Helltongue and English and I'm pretty sure that's Chinese, which Zhune will have to translate for me if it's anything important. "And now we have a handy list of targets to point people at, which I _appreciate_. If Lightning will send someone out to track down a handful of VapuTech that Judgment was hanging onto, what do you think they'll do when their own place gets raided? Even odds that by the time we catch up with the War, Lightning will already have jumped them."

"We had better hope not," Zhune says, and draws a chorus of honking as he merges unwisely into another lane, "or we will have a problem. Did you think she was making idle threats?"

"No. And I'm not about to believe that 'take your time' part either. But it makes us look good to no one if we walk into a pitched battle and keel over while pulling nothing out of it." I start with the papers in English, which will probably need to be destroyed for general security reasons. "So we close fast, find out what the hell the War is up to and who's already breathing down their necks, then make our plans from there. Did you already give away that tech we swiped?"

"Yes," Zhune says, and he's starting to sound less like he wants an excuse to destroy something himself. Good. That's my job, and this--well, it's work that can distract us both. Which we could use. We're fine when we have work to do. "Can't get it back easily now."

"Pity, but it was a long shot anyway. So here's our basic cover story, if we get jumped by either side. We were hired by Technology to swipe whatever the War just stole, because they want first dibs and--this would be easier if we knew what the project _was_." The first sweep of the papers isn't telling me a damn thing about those details, not if we're looking for a chemical formula or handheld weapon or, I don't know, whatever else Lightning makes. Spiffy motorcycles, perhaps. "Whatever it is, they want it first. Enough to take it from nominal allies. This would be easier if we could blame everything on a Prince that Baal _doesn't_ like, but, hey, mission parameters. We work with what we've got."

"Pinning it on Tech is low priority," Zhune says, which makes me wonder if he was even paying attention to the Marquis, and how she spoke about what she wanted. "Compared to pulling in the data--"

"Yes, I was there, I _heard_. But we're not working down her list in order, because that's a good way to get nothing done. We're focusing on what we can accomplish, so that we have some kind of success to show her when she wants to know how we did. On any result short of never finding our targets, or being killed immediately on encountering them, we can pull off blaming it on Tech." I shove all the papers I can't read into the glovebox. "Anything interesting said in the part I couldn't understand?"

"Not really," Zhune says, and snorts. "Catching up on old times."

Liar. But it's fair enough. Whatever she said to him wasn't any of my business, and he'd tell me if it was relevant to the job. We both get to keep a few lies that the other person pretends to believe, for the sake of working better together. "According to this map we have two states to go. After that... I'm going to need a real map because fuck if I recognize any of the names on the close-up se. Why don't we ever steal cars with GPS systems installed?"

#

Some fourteen hours later, we are in yet another fucking hotel room. Because it turns out that when the War decides to camp out in an isolated area, there is really no way to approach discreetly at night unless we're willing to drive with the headlights off across unlit unpaved roads and then hike through unknown half-wild land, most of which appears to be occupied by paranoid gun-hoarders.

"And this," I tell Zhune, "is why I hate rural jobs. Why can't they park in the middle of a city? I can _work_ with the middle of a city. I suspect that if I called the police on that compound, an old man in a sedan would show up within the next two hours, if the local cops were feeling really aggressive that day."

"No reason to involve mortals," Zhune says. He pulls the obligatory desk away from the wall, and spreads the papers across it. We've had time to read through them all more than once, even the ones where he translated once I convinced him to let me drive, and there's no point in looking over them again. I'm not about to forget the information in there this soon. "What's your clever plan?"

"My clever plan is that tomorrow morning we go look at this place and find out what we're dealing with. Ideally, it's a quick Song of You Can't See Me, I waltz in, grab whatever form the data exists in, waltz back out, and leave behind a 'Ha ha Technology did it' note or something. And, I don't know, use their own equipment to make their compound go up in an enormous explosion, which is probably even better than a 'Technology was here' note for looking Vapulan." I sprawl back on the dead. "But when do we hit ideal? So more likely I'll have to come up with a plan that actually qualifies for the name."

"I'm filled with confidence in this plan." Zhune beckons me over with two fingers, which I choose to ignore. "Come look at the data, Leo."

"I've read the data. Except for the parts you read to me. Most of it's getting shredded before we head out tomorrow."

"And that's where you are. With the plan."

"Yup. Pretty much." I tuck my hands behind my head, stare up at the ceiling, and wonder what the hell I'm doing. Because I could fake serious data analysis for _hours_ , keep that rolling until nearly dawn and time to head out to investigate the property. But I'm not. I'm letting this run straightforward and simple, and being kinda honest about it. Which is... I don't know. A bad idea? When did it stop being a good idea to be honest with my partner?

Oh, hey, I know when. Some time _before_ I ever met him, when I did a few jobs for War, spent a lot of time working with an Outcast Kyriotate, asked an Archangel to remove an inconvenient set of Discord... It's never been a good idea to tell my partner everything.

I just spent a while fooling myself into thinking it was otherwise. Because it was nice to believe I could be honest with the one person who was always with me anyway.

Which was before Zhune decided that my--friends isn't the right word, that he wanted to mess with anyone I knew on the other side, and maybe that's standard behavior, maybe that's _appropriate_ and I should be cheering him along, but I don't know why he can't just let things be. Why we can't be the amazing team we are when we're on the job, and just be that--all the time. In everything. I can trust him with my life, and he'll never betray me, and I can't trust him for an inch with anything he can use against me in private.

Zhune sweeps the papers together on the desk, and paces across the room. I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling, tracking him by the sound of it. Up to the side of the bed, standing beside it, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and then going still as he--oh, let's assume he's looking down at me. I'm in a position where he can do that so easily. What do the humans assume, when we come in together? Happy couple or some fucked-up set of lovers? Either one makes sense, or both, from one minute to the next.

I roll onto my side, and look up at him. "Need something?"

"You," he says, "have been spending too much time with Lilim."

"Apparently it runs in the Forces." I slide off the bed to my feet, one fast motion, and grab the collar of his shirt before I can _think_ about this too long, because, no, some things don't bear excessive consideration. "Hey, Zhune. Wanna fuck? Since we have the free time and all?"

And he goes perfectly still in my grasp. Like I said something wrong.

Which is an answer to a question I didn't know I was asking until I said that, a different question than I asked out loud, and maybe I would've been happier not knowing.

"That only required a yes or no answer," I say, and let go of his collar. "Never mind. I'm heading out. You want me to bring anything back?"

I'd as soon get out of here while we all forget about this stupid idea of mine, but he wraps a hand around my arm. It's not going to be that easy. "You should learn when to shut up," he says.

"Let go, Zhune."

"You should learn," he says, quietly and patiently, "when to give your opinion, and when it's not necessary. And you should really know better by now than to try to give me orders."

"If you can't answer a simple question or respond to a basic request--"

"The problem," Zhune says, talking right over me, and he drags me by the arm to the back wall, "is that you don't appreciate what you have. Don't I let you make the plans, and back you up with them? Don't I put up with your quirks, the messages you send and the cigarette habit and the drinking and all those little hobbies? And all I ask is that you give me a modicum of respect in return. Behave like a decent partner."

I don't like where I am. Back against the wall, the bed to my side and Zhune blocking me in. I don't like being cornered, metaphorically or literally, and this is not the time for a stupid argument. Not when we're on the job. "Stop being such a _Djinn_ and let go."

Zhune bends his head down until we're eye to eye, and he's making a point about how much loom he has on me in our respective vessels. "Not until you learn to behave," he says. "We can't fuck this one up, Leo."

"I am behaving. I am being the very _model_ of a Servitor of Theft, and you're the one causing problems over a simple question--"

"You don't get to offer," Zhune says. Slow and simple, like he's explaining the obvious to someone not quite bright enough to understand, and if I thought I could make it work, if we were not both so low on Essence and in such a dangerous situation already, I'd try to crack his hand off me with resonance alone. "You are _mine_ and you can't offer up what isn't yours to give away."

"That's not how 'partner' reads in my dialect."

"You're my partner," Zhune says, "and these are my rules. You can take them or leave them, but you will not enjoy the results if you try to leave."

I could probably resonate my way through the wall behind me without making any disturbance, but it would not do wonders for keeping a low profile on this job. "I'm your partner, and I'm not leaving you, and if you don't stop acting like this--"

He pulls me a half step away from the wall, and then slams me back into.

That hurt.

I mean. That's not going to do worse than leave bruises. But. He's not supposed to do that to me. Not like that. I can't tell if that's enough for dissonance, how would we even _explain_ that, but if it wasn't dissonant he's walking right up to the line and staring over it. He's let go of me and I--don't even know how to respond, because he doesn't do this. That. What he just did. It is not in the vocabulary of our increasingly frequent arguments.

He slides a hand under the collar of my shirt, and drags his fingertips across the place where the deepest bruise is forming and oh god I cannot help but react to that. Should've done worse to Anthony, I should've found a way to throw him to worse than the Game if there's any such thing, because my whole damn vessel tries to light up in response to that touch.

"In a way, I have to blame myself," Zhune says. "I haven't been explicit enough about some things. Left you to pick up on the rules without remembering that you came from another context, and wouldn't understand them the same way." He shoves me sideways onto the bed, follows up with a knee pressed into the bedspread beside me. That fucker can loom when he wants to, and he's still got a hand down my shirt, petting the bruise he made until my brain tries to turn off thought to focus entirely on sensation.

I am not letting it. And so all I can think about is the here and the now and the fact that I can still think straight to be aware of how amazingly fucked up this is.

"Now repeat after me," Zhune says, his breath on my ear and his fingers on my skin. My jaw's clamped shut to keep from making...noises. That I don't want to be making right now. "I can't give away what isn't mine." And his hands stops for that moment. Giving me space to respond.

"If it's part of me, it's mine. Get off me."

He puts a hand over my mouth, and the one down my shirt moves again. "Wrong," he says. "The other vessel you earned. That's yours. This shape's what the Boss gave me. Part of letting me keep you, and did you know that he's asked? If I still want you. Do you have any idea what would happen to you if I said no?"

Cannot bite the hand that holds me down, cannot answer with his hand there, cannot think straight with blue sparks of vessel reaction infecting my brain as he drags fingertips over the bruise he laid down. What would happen? I don't know. Depends on what the Boss knows. Maybe he already knows about Eder, and the instant Zhune's bored with me, that'll come back and bite me. Maybe he just--doesn't care much, I'm not the special pet that Zhune is to him, and if Zhune stopped wanting me he'd. I'd don't know. Give me away to someone else.

He'll never let me run around on my own. Will he. Not ever.

Can't think straight, can barely pay attention to how Zhune's shoving me further back onto the bed (he's got this move down, can hook me around with a knee here and elbow there even with both his hands occupied, I know how this song goes) but there it is, something I have always known and never really laid out like that before. Valefor will never ever let me run around on my own, not without some minder. Even if I surpass all my lifespan expectancies (I wish Zhune would get off my legs, I hate feeling so trapped--feeling nothing, I am trapped) there is no end point at which I get a pat on the head and sent out like some trusted Servitor. No one trusts me. With good reason.

Zhune takes his hand off my mouth to pull at my shirt. "It's just as well you have me," he says. Grips the fabric, meets my eyes, and tears the whole thing off. Cheap shirt. Been wearing it a while. Only damn one I had with me. "Imagine where you'd be on your own. How well did that work for you?"

"Worked fine," I say, which is only half a lie. I kept myself alive, made a few deals, made a few friends and enemies, and when I ran off to the Marches everything was _fine_. I could've stayed there forever, if someone--if Penny hadn't come calling. "Why can't I offer, Zhune? What would it hurt you to take what I want to give?"

"I let you get away with so much," he says, and yanks my jeans open. Lost a button, might've broken the zipper, I think someone feels he has to make a _point_ tonight. "I will only compromise so far. This is mine. For me to use as I like, and dispose of as I like. We would have less trouble if you understood that and stopped--" He shoves me back down when I'm trying to sit up. "--arguing."

And this would be so much easier if I stopped fighting, wouldn't it? It's always easiest to just do what he wants.

I try to knee him in the chest. Doesn't go real well. I just end up pinned down with his legs hooked around mine, my shredding jeans tangled around my knees. (Could resonate those apart to get that free, but I'd still be under him, and I'm running low on clothing.) "I am not--"

"You keep secrets," he says, and punctuates the sentence with a stroke across that bruise that's just this side of painful, and no less horribly beautiful inside my body for that. "Never told me how you got away from whatever had you pinned down while I was out, last month. And did I press for details? No." Every phrase gets another stroke, and I am going to start whimpering, I am, though I'm grinding my teeth together to keep myself quiet. "If it were important enough to work, you'd tell me. I trust you that far. But don't think I don't notice when you hide things."

I am making sounds I don't want to make. Could bite my tongue to keep myself quiet and that'd just leave me with blood in my mouth and the same sounds.

"I give you so much," Zhune says, "and you're still not happy. Why's that, Leo? Do you want something else? Some other sort of partner?" His hand on my shoulder stops moving, and clamps on. That's only pain now, nothing good within it. "What, would you rather have a Cherub?"

There is no good answer to that question. Including not answering. "Because that ended so well," I say, and I know how sharp I sound, "the last time I had a Cherub attuned to me."

"Entertained the Boss for a while," Zhune says, and goes back to petting. Like that was the right answer. I refuse to adjust my answers for _him_. He's my partner, not my supervisor, and I will tell him the truth or lie to him exactly as I think best. "That could have ended worse. Or better. Bless, Leo, just look at you spread, at a little touch, as soon as someone has you under control. Is that what you wanted? That what you got up to with that Waters Cherub, when you ran off to him?"

I'm having trouble, here. Putting words together. Figuring out what he means, which isn't always what he says. "What? Vaina?" I can barely remember that Cherub's face, and it was all dream image anyway. "I sweet-talked him into healing me. Nothing more. When you pushed me into--that."

And honest to god we both pause for an instant, there, because I think we have both realized that there is one easy way for me to end this conversation. If I hurt myself enough, he will _have_ to stop. That gets into the area of jeopardizing the job. We cannot risk that.

I can't do that. I have a job to do, and he's back to that petting, the way that makes me whimper through clenched teeth and wish I could maybe just feel and not think about any of this.

"You were in there a while," Zhune says. "Like I didn't notice. But I never asked, did I? Not what you did in there. Not what you've done with anyone else." He pries my legs apart, ripping my jeans further in getting enough space that he can spread my legs out and fuck but it _hurts_ when he shoves inside me, even in the midst of the way this vessel's reacting like everything he does is exactly what it wants. Not me. Just the damn human-shaped body, it was a present for him, no wonder it's not doing what I want.

"I didn't do anything," I say, because I want this to hurt less. I want him to stop. I want him to hurry up and get this over with. I want his fingers against my skin forever, that blurring edge of almost-pain and complete pleasure that he can call up every time.

"Not with him?" He's refusing to settle into a rhythm. He punctuates. Like I'm not answering his questions fast enough and how am I supposed to concentrate on an answer when he's like this?

"Never. Wouldn't. I'm not. That stupid."

"You've made bad decisions before," Zhune says, a purr in my ear like he's finally satisfied with how this is going. He kisses the top of my head, my eyes, grabs my jaw to force my mouth open for a proper kiss there, and he won't stop the petting or the shove and thrust that doesn't sync up with anything else. "I keep forgiving you. Did I ever ask what happened, when you ran around with that little snake while I was in Trauma? Did I ask even once?"

"Nothing," I say, and how can I not remember? Penny's hands and mouth and the fillings in his teeth, the collar on his shirt and the pale hairs on the backs of his hands. "Did what that Shedite asked. What the Boss told me."

"Liar," he says, his tone a pitch-perfect imitation of Penny's even if he can't do the voice, not here on the corporeal, and I lift my head up far enough to kiss him just to shut him up.

And he does. Shut up. It's enough. He won't stop the petting and I make sad desperate noises against his mouth but he stops saying things and he finds some sort of rhythm and when he finally finishes, it's not as bad as it could've been. Worse than it is when he gets me drunk first. Which is, I don't know, considerate of him, when he does? I don't even know how to measure these things anymore.

It's not like he's ever been so bad as the Habbalah were, even if neither of them were interested in fucking me.

When he stops petting my shoulder, he drags sweat-damp hair out of my face, and kisses my forehead. "What about that Lilim?"

I could argue that since he already said the other vessel was rightfully mine, I can do with it what I want, and oh isn't _that_ a trap just waiting for me to walk in. "We talk about books," I say, and cough, my throat's all raw. "Because you won't talk about them with me. You want to join the reading club, you're always welcome."

"You have weird hobbies, Leo," he says, and slides off me. He has to help me to my feet, and gives me an escort I don't strictly need to the room's shower. A big rectangular box with no tub, just translucent walls and a tiled floor. Which is a good place for me to slump down. "If you roll over for any other demon--or angel, which I usually wouldn't need to specify, but we know _your_ habits--I will hurt them."

"Like hell you will," I say, and close my eyes under the spray of water he turns on me. Not sure if he's even going to bother to undress and shower as well, or leave me in here to clean up. "You didn't do a fucking thing about Anthony. I had to take care of that myself. Unless it only counts if I want it?"

He laughs, and leaves the shower door open. Watching me, I expect, though all I can tell with my eyes closed is that there's a draft and no one else in the way of the water. "So what's the plan?"

"The plan is that we go see what the fuck is up tomorrow morning, that's the plan."

"You've thought about more than that."

Which is true. Not sure when, but sometimes the best plans come out of letting the back of the brain grind on it until I need to reach back there and grab something, instead of trying to put it all together consciously. "We need to drop information on them, so that means we're probably going to have to talk to them. And none of our data clarifies how we can tell what the real target looks like. So we may have to see if we can set up bait. Find a way to get caught without being too obvious about it, or killed out of hand. Suggest we know about incoming trouble. Stir up some trouble on the inside."

"Both of us?"

"Fuck, no, Zhune." I crack an eye open to glare at him. "Like that would make any sense. Whoever has a better chance of living through it walks in and plays hapless. Probably me, I'm better at looking hapless, but if they're going to shoot first, it'll have to be you. I can't take much damage. Play up the 'here all alone' part hard, the War will always believe Words they don't like are full of incompetent, unsupported loners. Locate the data. Stir up trouble between people in there. Find out where the weak spots are. Then--we need to pick up Celestial Tongues one of these days, if you could get one of your many good friends to teach it to us, because whoever's on the outside needs to get enough of this information to work on it and break the person on the inside _out_."

"That," Zhune says, "is a risky plan."

"Yes. Yes, it is. How safe is it to have that Marquis thinking we gave this anything less than our absolute best effort?" I close my eyes again while he's busy not answering that. "Thought so. Which means maybe Trauma happens, and that's just a risk we have to take. The important point is that anyone who gets caught remembers that Technology sent us all, all alone, and with so little prep that we're _really_ angry and ready to sell them out over it. The rest of the details we can work out on the fly. Now would you go buy me a beer and some replacement clothes, or what?"

"What's open at this time of night?" Zhune asks.

"Like I would know. Find something. At worst, a twenty-four hour pharmacy with a sewing kit, and I can see how punk my look can get."

#

Which is how I end up sewing my jeans back together at five in the morning on a hotel floor, while wearing a cheap t-shirt marked up with the logo of a 24/7 burger stand.

It could be worse. A lot of things could be worse. And Zhune brought me back a single excellent beer. I have no idea where he found it in this crappy little town in the middle of the night. 

From some people, I'd call that an apology. But it's not, from him. He doesn't apologize any more than he forgets.

But it's something.


	10. In Which We Acquire A Third

Some day I'd like to find out how the Marquis picked up enough information on this corner of the War's operation send us to the correct town and approximately correct span of land nearby, but not enough information to get us an _address_. She could have sent someone down to the tax office to do some digging once she had that much data, but--I guess that's us. And neither of us sitting around with a handy mind-warping resonance, unlike most demons out there. The nearest we have available is Zhune's ability to attune to some unlucky human and start ordering them around, and that lasts too long to use it on government clerks just yet.

Which leaves the two of us slogging through rough terrain between one pristinely manicured and well-populated ranch resort we've already marked off the list (because if the War is playing undercover tourist for this operation, I'll eat my own novelty t-shirt) and three adjoining plots of land, all of them full of brambles, deer trails through the bushes, and grimly sincere No Trespassing signs. I have no doubt that the unaffiliated humans around here, if any, will be as happy to shoot us as the Warriors if they catch us on their land.

I am not a happy camper. My one consolation as I try to move _quietly_ through the brush is that Zhune's not much happier. I can't remember the last time we did a job in rough terrain. The Tethers sitting out in the middle of nowhere usually either have nothing worth stealing, or too much security with those lines of sight to be worth the risk.

Zhune's taking point, because he can stand a few bullets. I'm taking the rear because if anyone's about to jump _him_ , I'm best at seeing that kind of thing. What I'd like to have with us right now is Nik, who would be every type of surveillance we could ever need and be thrilled at a chance to go chew on the War's throats for a while.

God, the things I could get done if I got to borrow Kyriotates. Occasionally and by contract, at exorbitant prices, even. Shedim are tragically incompetent in comparison. If Freedom and Trade could broker contracts across the lines--well, I guess it wouldn't be much of a war at that point. But I'd enjoy it more.

Zhune stops short ahead of me, and so I take a step back. If he's spotted anything, I leave it to him to decide to evade or tackle, and communicate accordingly. Can't go properly invisible without alerting people we'd rather not as soon as the Song wears off, so I am just being...discreet. In these bushes. With this stupid t-shirt and these stitched-together jeans.

At least if we do get jumped by the War before we're ready for it, I have half a chance of convincing them we are idiot hikers who got lost. I don't look much like a competent Servitor of anyone right now.

Zhune places his frozen and lifted foot gently on the ground, and begins a stalk forward that's nearly got a tail twitching behind it. So we're trying the tackle. That makes me backup, and keeping an eye out for Warriors working in pairs. If we've found the right stretch of land, they can't be watching all the perimeter too closely. Too much rough brush to keep line of sight from the presumed buildings further in, unless they've poured personnel into it. And the info on the hit team said they only had a half dozen people on the way into that lab, and lost at least one to angry Malakim of Lightning.

It would be ironic, and probably deeply entertaining to the Demon Prince of Dark Humor, if we're about to walk up on an actual hidden War Tether. But that seems unlikely. I mean. How often can I can do that in the stretch of one season?

I catch a glimpse of Zhune's target, olive green fabric and a flash of pale brown skin, before he lunges in. Trying to grab them from behind, hand over the mouth and a take-down from there with no sound.

Except whoever he's jumping skitters back like warning was given, whips around, and flicks something towards my partner in a smooth motion that results in a muffled thud and _crack_. Like bone just broke.

Well that's not a good sign at all, and in the split second decision between _fall back and let Zhune play spy-captive_ and _hurry in and stop them before the whole camp is alerted and jumps us_ , looks like the second's winning.

I round a tree and see: item the first, my partner backing off, hands raised, like he's considering how to attack next; item the second, that Sparky angel that I ran into back in the alleyway, currently rocking on their heels with weapon in hand while considering my partner in turn; and item the third, the angel appears to be armed with a yoyo.

If we are dealing with a Malakite of Creation doing temp work for Lightning, we have--no. No. Wait. Not a problem. A glorious opportunity.

I spread my hands wide and open, and say quietly, "How about we all wait a minute and figure this out?"

The both of them look at me, and I couldn't say which seems more surprised.

"Because," I say, quiet and quick since I don't know how long the stalemate will last, "we're not with the War, and the fact that you're not shouting for backup means _you're_ not with the War, and what are the odds that we're both here after the same thing?"

I think that Zhune's expression is attempting to quietly and discreetly express horror at me, but, hey, this is what happens when he lets me come up with all the plans. Or makes me come up with all the plans. Kinda fuzzy on the difference right now. Besides, he'll like this one as soon as he figures out where I'm going with it.

"Plausible," says the angel, and the yoyo spins down and up again in their hand. "But I'm not sure it changes anything." They're keeping their voice low too.

"Of course it does," I say. "If we're all looking to swipe something from that cluster of Warriors over the next hill, it does none of us any good to alert them. So we're not about to break out with Songs, blow Essence, or otherwise do a lot of damage that'll bring them running. Or even _shout_." I put on my best--oh, let's skip the Impudite smile and go for the Lilim one. Let's make a deal. "Do you think you can take both of us? And even if you can, do you think you can do it quietly and quickly and not come out the other side so damaged that it puts a crimp in your plans? Because evidence says _you_ can make this encounter a problem for us. Why not live and let live? Just until we all get what we want."

"Or," Zhune murmurs, "we could kill him and take his stuff." Which I would find much more likely if his sneak attack hadn't turned into a broken arm and yet another instance of not a scratch on this angel. I don't know if they're that powerful, or just that lucky, but I'd rather not plan on the second and discover it's the first.

"You could try," says the angel, with actual cheer. Which should make Zhune worry if he is not sufficiently worried already. "Would not recommend it." They flick the yoyo up and down, trying to keep an eye on both of us at once. Which for the moment I'm positioning myself to let them. I can always scatter and start dropping branches on their head if they decide we're a bit too evil to live. "Suppose we are aiming at the same target. Wouldn't that cause some trouble when we try to run away from the War holding the same thing?"

"It would," I say, "but the War has a _lot_ of stuff. Maybe we want different things. Three can scout faster than two, much less one. Get everyone in, grab what we want, and then all bets are off on the way out. Does that sound like a deal to you?"

The angel is watching me more closely than Zhune, now. Which may be to our advantage. "I have to note, just for the record, that my boyfriend takes it really personally when people try to Geas me," they say mildly. "The last time it happened, he showed up in person to start ripping Forces off. Fair warning."

I spread my hands wider. Look at the innocent, harmless, admittedly somewhat grubby little Lilim who could not be any threat at all. "No Geases. Purely informal bargaining. How about this. I'll promise not to betray you or get in your way if you'll do the same for me. So long as we're not after the exact same thing in there."

Because if they're from Lightning, what they probably want is that data, even more than the equipment. But everyone knows Theft goes after the shiny loot. And if this angel is smart enough to put the pieces together, and come to the right conclusion...well, if we're all after the same thing, I can drop the War on them, and vice versa, on the way out the door. Because I intend to get what we came for, and I'd much rather have the local angelic infestation pointed in useful directions other than my partner's throat.

They rock back and forth on their heels. Malakite or Ofanite, I'm not sure yet, but that is not a Seraph or Elohite standing in front of me. And they're not going to send in a Mercurian against the War, not with how much that Prince likes recruiting human cannon fodder. "There's only one group of Warriors around here," they say, "or at least I _hope_ there's only the one group, but we might well be after different things inside. What about your friend here? Because he doesn't look like he's in favor of the deal, and I'm not about to shake hands with you while I get stabbed in the back. It wouldn't end well."

They have such a friendly expression, and yet I don't think that angel is expressing worry so much as a warning.

"I don't know, let me ask." I turn away to look up to Zhune, who's got his broken arm pressed against his side now. "Do we want to get into a stupid and unnecessary fight a quarter mile from the target we're supposed to be _sneaky_ around, or do we play nice with the angel for a day or two until everyone walks away happy?"

"You can't trust angels further than you can throw them," Zhune says, and looks the Sparky up and down deliberately. Measuring the distance on that effort. And the angel grins back, yoyo spinning beneath their hand.

"Sure," I say, "but I think this one wants a little _help_ getting inside. Don't you? Because I would not want to walk into that place alone, much less expect to walk out again safely with anything in hand."

Zhune snorts, and gives the angel a truly Balseraphic look, down the nose and sneering. He's still the tallest of everyone present. "I can play nice," he says, "exactly as long as he does."

Oh, good. We are on the same page.

"She," says the angel cheerily, raising a hand. "Last I checked down the pants, anyway. The lack of trust is mutual, and I need to call central to double-check permission on this. Shall we back off a bit before the patrol swings around this way again? I'd say we have about three minutes left before they hit earshot on our current position, depending on how good that soldier is at listening for chatter."

And five minutes later we're at a fence of wooden posts and barbed wire, marked every hundred feet with No Trespassing signs, while the angel whips out her cell phone to make a call. Zhune staring daggers, and me playing the nice friendly Tempter. Which might not work so well as it could if I'd gone the Impudite route, seeing as she's run into Lilim before, but it'll do. Zhune and I can good thief/bad thief with the best of them, and so long as she's expecting trouble from that direction, I get room to play.

"Hey, it's Kai," she says to the phone, and leaps up onto one post, where she balances on one foot. Watching back into the stretch of trees we came from, while I guess she trusts us to watch the dirt road behind her. "Ran into some demons who are hitting the same place, and I need permission to cooperate briefly while we hit the place. Otherwise I think this is going to end up with a lot of doom and fire like in--" She pauses, listening to the other end of the line. "Well, I don't _know_ that it would, I'm making an educated guess! So given that I don't have confirmation yet, and whatever they get up to is a decent smokescreen for my job--yeah. Sure." She tosses the phone to me, and steps down off the post backward. Perfect footing where she drops to the ground, and the fence is between us now, while I'm holding a piece of Lightning tech. I thought they weren't allowed to do it. "My supervisor has a few questions."

I hold the phone up to my ear, and wonder just how much truth that supervisor is getting right now, because ten to one I'm speaking to a Seraph. "I have no intention of resonating your angel," I say into the phone, "and I mean to keep my stated promise of not selling her out to the War, or anyone else, so long as we have different looting targets in there. Can't make any promises for my partner, but if he messes this up he's likely to fuck me over too, so I think it's unlikely. Any other questions?"

"Word served?" asks the voice on the other end of the line.

"Theft."

"Pass it back."

I toss the phone over accordingly, and the angel catches it. "So do you think--oh. Really? Huh. Okay." She shrugs. "It is in the job description, isn't it? See if you can leave this out of the next report that gets passed on to Mannie, and I'll explain it to him myself once it's done. Thanks." 

I get the impression her relationship with her supervisor is rather more casual than most I've had before.

"Sure. Triplicate. No crayon." She snaps the phone shut, and drops it into a jacket pocket. Unlike me, she has a tidy and coordinated outfit on, in drab olive and brown. Perfect for a bit of sneaking through the woods. "Looks like we get to play nice for a while, and let's just assume that the whole bit where we try to talk each other into joining the other side is a given and not exactly a betrayal of anything, to avoid headaches, okay? So we'd better get moving."

I hook a thumb over my shoulder back into the forest. "If you've already spotted their scouts, you know where they're centered. So let's go hit the place."

"Much as I like the way you think, there," says the angel, "like hell am I walking in there with two unknowns and no better plan than 'I know what the building looks like on the outside.' Let's get back to town, find a quiet place to talk, and come up with a decent plan before we make any hasty decisions."

But I like hasty decisions. Zhune has to support me when I make those, because he doesn't have time to argue before we're committed.

"Fine," Zhune says. "You're Lightning? Get us something to work with that's worth planning from."

"Working for them," the angel says, "I just _work_ for them. And I think I can help all of us there."

God help me, but I like the way she smiles. I think she's just mad enough to make this plan work.


	11. An Interlude, In Which I Get To Play With Other People's Toys

Kai didn't much like to think that she was _manipulating_ people. No matter what Nosha said about the virtues and holiness of setting up situations so that other people picked the best possible response, she liked to be upfront about things where possible. Honest. Straightforward, even if it seemed like most people had trouble following the clean, straight lines of logic she used, even when she explained things to them. Go figure.

But all that said, she rather liked that after some brief discussion by the side of the road, the two demons were convinced that they ought not let her out of their sight (good plan!) and that they could best do this, with the vehicles and people available--she wasn't about to show off the summoning trick when it wasn't needed, and would make disturbance on re-entry besides--by splitting up. The little red-headed maybe-Lilim (she had her doubts) on the bike with her, and the other demon, didn't have him pegged yet, in their car.

Kai didn't mind being kept an eye on. Keeping the attention of demons pinned on her and away from something else was her _job_ now and again, and she was sure neither one of them could take her alone, barring the possibility of Songs (which would attract attention from the War) or, well. Lots of attunements out there that could weird a person's head, but it wouldn't be much of a job if there weren't any risks in it.

She popped open the storage compartment on her bike, and offered her demonic tagalong a helmet. "Got a name you'd like me to use?"

"Leah," said the demon, and eyed the helmet dubiously. "Were you planning on crashing in the ten minutes it takes to get back to town?"

"More like seven," Kai said, "assuming I stick to the speed limit and observe posted signs, which I was planning on, but the funny thing about crashes is how often they happen when you're not expecting them. I totaled a car in the absolute middle of nowhere once, though I'm pretty sure there was infernal influence going on that time. Point is, if the War jumps us halfway to town and the bike gets rolled, you'll be glad for a helmet."

Leah (which was probably not her name, either, but Kai was used to working on bad and partial information when it came to dealing with demons) pulled on the helmet, and cinched it into place. "Happy?"

"In general, about this job, or about the helmet situation?" Kai straddled the bike, pulled her own helmet into place, and waited for the demon to settle on behind her. "Yes, no, and yes, respectively. I recommend holding on." And at the suspicion she could practically hear rolling off the demon behind her, "I'm an Ofanite, Leah. My resonance doesn't care if you're touching me or not, or what's in your head."

As soon as the demon's arms settled around her, she hit the road.

The helmets were miked, and on a longer drive she might've turned those on. Or, in a cheating sort of way, turned on only the one direction, to listen to the breathing of the person behind her. For a seven minute drive, she let the potential for conversation be drowned out by the sound of engine and road, gravel beneath the tires and wind sweeping past their bodies. Pure and simple motion, that perfect moment of _forward_ where she felt like a part of something larger, nearer to perfect, more pure in its intentions. She wondered if that was what it was like to have a Word bound in soul-deep, not only in the Heart but in the body, as much a part of yourself as fiery ring and sense of space. To be intimately something else, something bigger, just as much as you were yourself.

It was almost a disappointment to drop speed, putter along at the 25 mph of posted signs for the town center, and park by the coffee shop. (The other demon had directions, and a stated intent to swing out past town to heal his arm, then back in. Probably to make other nefarious plans in the unobserved time, too, but she expected that of demons.) She collected Leah's helmet, and stowed everything away. "Coffee while we wait?"

"Sure," Leah said, her attention skipping away in another direction. "Actually. Rain check on that." She strode off briskly toward the store to the left of the coffee shop--a poorly lit used clothing store, marked with the name of the church across the street--and Kai followed.

"Looking for something?" Kai asked, across the threshold and blinking her eyes into focus again in the dim light.

"A shirt that doesn't have a stupid slogan on it," Leah muttered, and stalked down the aisles. "And jeans that'll survive falling out of a tree."

"Good call," Kai said. Thrift store replacement of clothing damaged in combat? Now that was something she had _experience_ in, the way Mannie had experience with rewiring security systems for better energy efficiency, or the way Jack had experience with breaking through those same systems.

Not a good train of thought, that second one. She set it aside to talk about later with someone who'd understand, and swept through the aisles, pulling out what looked the right size and right colors (but nothing tie-dye, despite her inclinations, because that wasn't great for the stealth aspect of this) to pile in the demon's arms. "Try these. Your shoes still good?"

"My shoes are fine," the demon said, and there was deep suspicion in that look. Which was about what Kai expected, whatever the demon's Band. This one seemed smart enough to start wondering about hooks inside of presents, which was not Kai's gig at all, but a fair question.

"Then if you'd get changed," Kai said patiently, and tried not to bounce on her heels too much, "we can get to coffee before your friend shows, sees we're not there, and thinks I kidnapped you."

Which worked. Kai paid for jeans-and-shirt-and-jacket in a lump sum at the counter, with a twenty stuffed into the donations jar while she was at it, and went next door to order coffee. Leaving the demon alone for five minutes? Not that dangerous, compared to the one out of her sight for a lot longer, and she wanted some caffeine in her before trying to work out what to do next. Two Magpies could throw any plan into chaos, worse than Windies might; they were more predictable, but less constrained in their actions. The Wind might do anything, so long as it was for the best; Theft would only do what they wanted, and that could be nearly anything. Yes, she was much happier keeping an eye on these two for as long as she could.

And if they ran off with the stolen equipment, as they probably intended--and she knew a loophole clause if she ever heard one, because Leah expected her to want the same thing--that could be a problem for some Sparkies good at that kind of retrieval. All she needed was to get that Soldier out of there (if he was still alive, and by god she hoped he still was) and the rest wasn't her problem.

Besides, she could talk with the Thieves first, and find out what they were like. Which would give the retrieval team inevitably sent after the equipment a lot more information to work on about where it had gone.

She took three cups of coffee to a table in the back room of the coffee shop, and decided that this plan was too easy. Straightforward. Those kind _never_ worked. But as Mannie always said, it was good to have a plan to diverge from.

A moment after sitting down at the table, she realized that her phone wasn't in her pocket anymore. Which was not entirely unexpected. And if the Magpies ran off with that as a souvenir while they ditched her, well. Wouldn't they be surprised when they found out how good the tracking was on that thing.


	12. In Which The Angel Is Chatty

I flick open the angel's phone while I'm in the changing booth, and find it's not password protected. Idiot. It's practically an antique by cell phone standards, with a screen that only does grayscale letters and pixelated images.

The first thing I check is the address book. Which turns out to be nothing but names, with no sign of the attached numbers, so scratch that off for info that might be worth something. Mannie, Nosha, Maharang, Gariel (that's really a name?), Sharon, Nomikos, Niele, GammaAndStrange (someone has to talk to angels about their naming choices), and...that's the end of the list. I'd have expected more.

Next up: pictures. Once I figure out how to start pulling those up, I discover that this phone can offer a crisp full-color image when it feels like it, which suggests the old-fashioned look is deliberate deception. Which weirdly makes me feel better; this will all work out more smoothly if we're dealing with an angel who's smart enough to think she's much smarter than we are. I tap my way through the photos--trees, motorcycles, a broken window, not many with any people in them--until I find the shot of Zhune, and delete that. Which may not mean anything at this point, but if she hasn't recognized him yet, there's a better chance now that she won't.

There's an icon of an envelope which probably means email, but that one asks for a password when I try to open it. I try the license plate on the angel's motorcycle, just in case it's that obvious, but no such luck. And none of the other icons on the screen respond when selected, which could mean they're only there for show, or that a single bad password locks everything down. No telling.

I toss the phone into the corner of the changing booth, and pull on the least battered set of jeans in the set she dumped on me. Which fit, so that's one thing taken care of. I pull on a black t-shirt emblazoned with the faded logo and tour dates for some band with a not hideously embarrassing logo, a skull inside an arrow-pointed heart. It feels properly Lilim, and the longer I can keep the angel convinced that's what I am, the better. More chance that she'll believe my promises, which could be useful.

Once I'm dressed, I feel more--ha. Human? Demonic? More like I'm in control of the situation. I don't like letting Zhune play dress-up Calabite with me at the best of times, and destroying my existing clothes is a new low for him. This is the slightly girlier version of something I'd wear voluntarily, and the best I'm likely to get in a town this size.

When I leave the changing booth to dump the extra clothes in the restock bin, I find the angel's gone and ditched _me_. But the old woman at the counter waves me over, and shoves a dark gray hoody across the counter to me. "Your boyfriend already paid," she explains, and gives me a watery smile.

So that's at least two details wrong in one statement, assuming that "paid" is accurate. And I am suddenly uncomfortable to find I'm letting an angel dress me up instead. She'd damn well better be an Ofanite like she claims, and not another covert Heaven-side Lilim, or I'm going to murder someone, just see if I don't.

I pull the hoodie on, because the spring air's still nippy around here. It's a few inches too long in the sleeves, enough that I need to fold them back. At least I know she can't estimate my size with complete accuracy. (But I'm getting the uncomfortable feeling that she's sizing me up pretty well in other regards. What kind of angel is that quick to agree to a temporary truce with demons, anyway?) "Said anything about where to meet up?"

"Not specifically, but I think he was heading for the coffee shop."

So maybe I'm not being ditched after all. Yet. And with the angel's phone now tucked into my pocket, she can't be calling in a strike team either. (Yet.) But the sooner we get moving, the sooner we can all be surprised to discover we're after the same thing, and I can ditch with Zhune while she--I don't know, calls in a strike team then? And she's welcome to do so. I'm about as fond of the War as I am of the Game, which means I'd have no objections to dropping Lightning on their heads even if the Marquis hadn't asked for nearly that.

It's a pity Technology doesn't seem to have shown up yet. Wouldn't that be a three-way fight to watch? Preferably from a safe distance, with popcorn at hand.

I walk into the coffee shop, and try to get the memory back out of my head of sitting on a bench beside my Prince, watching a school gym burn to the ground. That was...glorious. Satisfying. The closest I've ever come to feeling like I'm doing things _right_ for Theft, except for when the Boss decided to Charm me dizzy. (And I still can't figure out if he did that as reward or punishment or for his own amusement. Or to see what I'd say when I felt that way.) This job here, I don't know if doing it perfectly counts as right for Theft, or if it only counts towards not being murdered by a Marquis with a grudge against my partner. Either way, I'm not full of high hopes for a reward at the end.

In theory I should buy a cup of coffee to justify my presence in the shop. In practice, the counter's monopolized by a man with a charming smile who's listening to what sounds like the barista's entire life story. I skip the mercantile part of this complete breakfast and hunt around the peculiar crannies of the shop: most of the tables are empty, and the free ones are taken up with serious telecommuters staring at laptops, or bored students staring at different laptops. It takes me some backtracking--this coffee shop is a warren, and must've been built out of a multi-room house--but I hunt down one angel of "I just work for Lightning" at a table in what must've been a large closet once, with lousy line of sight towards any building exits. Good for hiding, bad for keeping an eye on incoming trouble. Like me.

She raises a coffee cup in a sort of wave towards me, and points to the seat across from her, where two more are waiting. "Trade you caffeine for my phone back," she says, as I sit down.

I slide the phone across the table, and try the coffee. Tastes like coffee. Ash's was better. "You left it in the store."

"For a certain definition of 'left', I suppose I did." She studies me without trying to hide a moment of it, and while she's looking at me her hands are busy with a napkin. Fast, precise moves that she doesn't even feel the need to keep her eyes on, when she could be studying something more interesting. "Do you work with angels often?"

"Almost never," I say, which is probably still the truth. As a total percentage of jobs, it's very low. "Do you work with demons often?"

"Now and again," she says. "It's funny. You'd think that the saying would be true, about the enemy of an enemy, but it's not. Most of the time when I find some common cause with a demon and we work together, they're trying to set me up. And about ten percent of the time, they turn out to be with the Game, pretending to be someone else entirely."

Which explains why the one question the Seraph wanted to ask me directly was about Word service. "And yet here you are, trying again."

"Here I am," she says, and slides the napkin across the table towards me. It's an origami crane, wobbly on its base for having been made from soft paper, and she's already starting on the next. "It works out sometimes. Plenty of things worth doing only work occasionally. Ideally practice would make perfect, but as all social interaction with people I haven't met before is essentially improv dance with a new partner, it doesn't quite go like that. How did it go the last time you worked with angels?"

Well, I sent a tough kid off with them to sign up for the opposite side of the war, ran off with an artifact that made the Boss very happy to get it, was thoroughly rewarded by him after being nearly murdered by an ancient, annoyed god to whom I still owe a big favor. "Sort of a mixed bag," I say, and try the coffee again. Still tastes like coffee. "What about the last time you worked with demons?"

"Last time? That was one of the ten percents." She shrugs, paper folding between her fingers. "Could've gone worse. Didn't lose a vessel that time, so that was a nice perk."

"You're really completely sure you're not a Malakite."

"I don't know why people keep _asking_ me that," the angel says, in what sounds like honest bemusement. "Told you I was an Ofanite. I suppose it's one of the trickier ones to prove, though I could tell you the fastest way to the nearest hospital if you really wanted to know."

I peer at her over my coffee. "Maybe I shouldn't take any favors from you, just in case."

"I'm not a Bright Lilim either," she says, "though my boyfriend is. You know, most demons either don't know those exist, or pretend they don't know. Where did you run into one?"

Fuck. Miscalculation, I wasn't even hinting--well, I was, because I thought I could get away with it, and because it's a lot more fun to taunt the angels if they aren't picking up on what I mean. I don't think she'll buy outright denial, and it beggars belief that she'd be a deep cover agent for the Game. "Some of the propaganda is more plausible than other parts," I say, and shrug it off. "I expect it's the same on your side."

"You have the Media. We have Seraphim. It's less propaganda and more inspirational speeches, on our side," she says. "Which you might expect would lead to more infighting, but as far as I can tell half of Hell spends more time fighting the other half than ganging up against us. Lucky us, huh?"

"Some of us know how to get along," I say, which is maybe not at its most plausible when I'm chatting with an Ofanite about how to rob the War. "It's not all infighting, any more than it's all hugs and holding hands with you."

"True enough," she says, and sets a second crane down by the first. "I've got a skewed sample population, anyway. I'm a lot more likely to chat with demons who don't get along well with other demons, and the ones who are working in perfect unison seldom want to stop and discuss the contrast in work environments over coffee. I suppose you get along with your friend just fine, or you wouldn't be working together."

"Just fine." I suspect Penny would be making disapproving faces at me by this point. "What's with sending you out here alone? I thought that angels traveled in packs. Since you're all such good buddies and everything."

"Well, I did have a Cherub with me for a while," she says, "but everyone agreed that this wasn't fair to him at all, so mostly I work on my own these days. Check in regularly so that they know to send a search team out if they don't hear from me, that kind of thing. Which is kinda weird, after decades of working on my own, but that's how it goes." She shrugs loosely, a third crane forming between her fingers. "I can always call home, so it doesn't get lonely. I stop by Tethers and the like pretty often. It's more structured than I might like, but I'm fine with that overall. The structure keeps other people happy, and Judgment doesn't twitch nearly so much as they used to about what I get up to, even though I do a lot more chatting with demons than I ever did before."

"Creation," I say, and she grins.

"Got it one. And, before you ask, _still_ not a Malakite." She sets the third bit of origami down between us, and this one's a frog, one foot smudged brown with a coffee stain. "You know, as soon as your partner gets here, we ought to focus on plans."

Which is obvious, and she's not saying it because it's obvious, but because she's making a point. That if there's anything I want to say or ask without being overheard, now's the time. And she's making this clear without saying it outright, because I have--space. To pretend I didn't pick up on what she meant, and keep on chatting about nothing until Zhune shows up. Which would be the smart thing to do. He claims he likes taunting the angels, twisting them up and dangling out bait to see how far he can convince them to lunge, but somehow he never likes it when I do it. Even when he's the one setting me up as bait.

There are things I want to know that this angel could probably tell me, but I can't trust her to tell me the truth about anything important. So. Better to focus on current goals, and see if I can get the setup for Technology aimed in a useful direction.

"Is Creation always so goal-oriented?" I ask. "Or is that just a Lightning thing?" I pick up the origami frog to turn between my fingers while she sets to making another something out of a napkin--we're going to have a zoo of paper critters on the table by the time Zhune gets here--and put on a bright nonchalance that will, with any luck, suggest I'm fishing for data on Lightning.

"Definitely a Lightning thing," she says. "They gave me an office and an actual job description. Though they kept editing the job description until it just read 'other duties as assigned,' and that's not so bad. As work environments go, it's very..." She waves a half-folded napkin around. "...predictable? Which some people love, so there you have it."

"Not a lot of random explosions?"

"They're not _Technology_ ," she says, with milder indignation than I'd expected. "Usually things only explode if they mean to. Most of the time if they mean to explode things, it's things belonging to Vapulans, which is practically redundant with the way that stuff goes off the first time you accidentally break the safety valve off with a thrown fire extinguisher or something."

Why do I get the feeling that's not a hypothetical example right there? "So you're saying that there's not a high chance of the--what the War has its hands on taking out all of us if we jostle it too hard while we're there."

"Not unless they're packing the equipment together with VapuTech," Kai says, "which strikes me as even less responsible than the War's usual standards. On the other hand, things tend to catch on fire and sometimes explode when I'm around, so you never know."

I slouch back in my seat, and pause on any comment while the chatty human from the counter glances into the nook we're in. And finding it occupied by two people and a parade of origami, he keeps right on moving. "You're sure you're not a Calabite either? Except I guess Lightning is as much against them as Technology is."

She looks truly indignant now. "A Destroyer? Are you kidding me? Why would I want to be that _slow_? And there are at least two Superiors out there who could point out just about anyone can start a fire. Even by accident."

"Fair enough," I say. "Haven't met a lot of Calabim, have you?"

"Not in the chatty sense," she admits, placing a tiny paper giraffe beside Zhune's cooling mug of coffee. "That's the sampling bias coming up again; since I deal with Vapulans so often, most of the Calabim I meet are hired guns trying to blow my head off. Presumably there are polite and cautious Destroyers out there, but somehow we've never had a chance to say hello to each other."

"Maybe the part where you attack people on first meeting them is why you're short on a wide range of conversational partners." I take another sip of my coffee, which is lukewarm and not particularly more disgusting than it was when it was hot.

"Probably," she says. "Could say the same for your friend, who did try to hit me first."

"Tried."

"I'm supposed to be fast," she says. "Sort of the central idea of the Ofanite thing. If I get hit much, something's gone wrong."

"Don't you ever get tired of that?" I wave a gesture to the array of origami. "Never getting to _stop_. Like being on some sort of constant caffeine rush with no space to breathe."

"Do Seraphim get tired of the truth?" Which sounds not entirely like a rhetorical question, from her, but something she's thinking about as she asks it. "Or do Cherubim get tired of loyalty, Elohim tired of objectivity... Some must, because some angels do Fall. There are Ofanim out there who decided to give up on their place in the Symphony in favor of shoving bits of it out of the way. Some people tried to convince me to do the same, a few times. Seeing as you can't exactly push an angel of Creation through Word dissonance." She lays a paper dolphin down in the center of the table. "But I can't understand the people who do lay that down. It might be easier to talk them back around if I did understand it, but. Nope. I don't get it at all. The world is made of motion, Leah. This planet's spinning beneath us, and that's motion as much as driving the motorcycle is, _more_ motion even if I have less control. Everything's moving, over and again and in a thousand directions, from the expansion of the universe down to the way my fingertips bend. What doesn't move is dead."

Her smile is, for a moment, brilliant and beautiful. "And I like being fast," she says. "If you did want to swing back through that store, we could get you better shoes. Those ones aren't very good for running."

I can't tell if she's giving me a recruitment speech, or just that much into her own Choir. Best to play not-a-Calabite a while longer, in case that'll hold. "I bet you say that to all the girls you meet."

She laughs. "About shoes, or the motion of the stars? The stars come up a lot more often. And sometimes Shakespeare, but it turns out not as many people read him as you'd think."

"I always preferred prose," I say, because this is a much safer topic than what Ofanim get up to in their free time. "More nuance in the reading."

"That's because plays aren't meant to be read, they're meant to be performed," she says, leaning in over the table with sharp elbows propped on either side of her coffee. She really could pass for a Seraph in that vessel, but never with this way of moving. "Reading a play in text is like--reading a book while skipping every other sentence. Part of what makes performance art brilliant is the way it changes every time, and how the performers bring their selves into the work. You don't get the whole story until you see how the story is being told _this_ time, with _this_ group of people."

"You say this like you expect me to run off to a Shakespeare festival and test your theory."

"I wish," she says, smile quirking into something rueful. "The last time I got a chance to stop at a Shakespeare festival, I got jumped by the Game."

"What does the Game have against you, anyway, that you're running into them so often?"

She shrugs loosely. "It probably started when I helped a Renegade Lilim get away from them, but it didn't exactly help when I set that one Tether on fire. Sort of a long-standing grudge at this point. What can you do?"

I lean forward in turn, and switch on my best Valefor smile. "Have you ever considered working for Theft? Hypothetically speaking. Or just...contracting a little. Because it sounds like we could get along _really_ well."

"Sorry," she says, in an _I'm not really sorry_ type of cheer. "Not interested. My friends would object, and my boyfriend would probably show up with the heavy weaponry we're not actually supposed to bring to Earth yet and it would get...unfortunate! For all sorts of people, and then there'd be the awkward questions from Judgment."

"And we wouldn't want those," Zhune says dryly, as he slides into a seat between the two of us. Which puts his back to the open space, but he knows I can see anyone coming from the direction. Just like I saw him. "Obligatory recruitment speeches handled, then? Or must we run through those before we can focus on the job?" Which sounds like he's picked Balseraph as his flavor to pretend to.

"She doesn't want to work for Theft, and I'm not really the Lightning type, so unless you want a turn..." I wave at Zhune expansively, and then shove his cold coffee over to his side of the table, toppling two cranes and a butterfly in the process. Casualties of the redistribution of property. "Discover anything exciting and new while you were out?"

"No," Zhune says, and looks down his nose at the Ofanite. "Do you have anything useful to add to the planning process?"

"I might," she says, and reaches into a pocket. Then puts out her hand. "Which I can show you if you give me my phone back."

Having retrieved that from Zhune, she flips it open, and starts tapping across the keys. A set of origami figures are moved out of the way to clear a space on the table, and then she lays her phone to the side of that space, screen tilted forward. Then, after a moment's thought, she unfolds a napkin to lay out in the space. "Right. So here's where we're looking at."

A satellite image of treetops, buildings, cleared spaces and roads, spreads across the napkin. That damn phone's got better projection than some professional business equipment I've seen. She taps a space that's partially cleared, with a cluster of rooftops within, and now that she's pointing it out, I can recognize the resort off at the far side of the image.

"Someone tell me why we can't steal a satellite," I say, and lean in to get a better look. "The War's in there?"

"This one's rented, I think," she says, "so maybe you could hire one. Patrols are around this territory." She sets two fingers down on the projected image and spreads them out, and the image zooms in accordingly. "Here's the front gate. The image is a few weeks old, but I confirmed this morning that they have three vehicles in there--two vans and a godawful Hummer--of which one matches a description from the raid. They probably swapped vehicles in case of tracking along the way, which slowed them down a bit. This roof to the west side is some kind of warehouse or gym, according to building permits, but there's no knowing how they might have modified it. Still probably not where they're centering activity, unless they have a serious underground setup, because it only has one good entrance." Her finger moves across the image to a smaller square of gray. "Communications center. You can see the antenna next to it. Much too small to hold anything but a few watchers, and as best we can tell, they're not staffed well enough to bother with that."

"Do we know how well they're staffed?" I ask, because the less info I can give about what we know, the more we may be able to pull out of her.

"Last info we have on that point was from the raid," she says. "Which arrived with six and left with five, at least one of those surviving being a Shedite."

"You're sure?" Zhune asks.

She gives him a thoughtful look. "Unless you have another good explanation for someone pulling up Celestial Shields, but also making disturbance when they get smacked, I'm pretty sure it's a Shedite. No clear idea on the others, since it got so noisy in there, but best guess is at least one other human, and a few demons."

"So if the Shedite was riding a Soldier, they might be back up to six, even if they didn't get a chance to pull in more personnel." I tap the third roof in the image, tugging the napkin out of place as I do. The phone's surprisingly good at compensating for the rough surface in giving an unskewed projection. "And you think they're in here?"

"That's the house," Kai says. "Two stories and a basement, before whatever changes they've made. If they have humans to keep alive, and they're planning on hunkering down for a while, that's probably where they're centered. It has a clear line of sight for the approach on these three sides, and the focus of their patrols seems to be this part here. With all the trees. Which are not, alas, very tightly grouped, so it's lousy cover for an approach even so."

"How were you planning on getting inside?" Zhune asks, fingers drumming on the edge of the table.

"Hadn't gotten that far yet in the plan," Kai says, cheerful as if she's discussing shoes or Shakespeare again. "Probably _differently_ than I will with the two of you...around. I did think about tagging each person on patrol in turn until I'd whittled down the numbers and then doing a smash-and-grab, but people tend to yell at me about it in the debriefing when I do that kind of thing, assuming they're not yelling at me after I wake up from Trauma."

"And you won't be yelled at for working with us?" I ask.

"No, no. Judgment doesn't yell. They ask pointed questions and make disapproving faces." She holds up her empty mug. "Anyone want more coffee?"

"No," I say quickly, and plant a thumb over at the possibly empty warehouse-or-gym. "What do you think the odds are that they're actually holed up in here?"

"Low, but not miniscule," Kai says.

I glance over at Zhune, who is not giving me any leads via facial expression right now, or pointed questioning of his sort. Fine. So I'll do all of this myself. "Think we can force them to run for it? We might have a better chance of hitting them on the road. Spike a few tires, roll some vans..."

"I don't know," the angel says, reaching for another napkin to continue the origami assault on the table. "Brawling on top of moving vehicles is more challenging than the movies would have you believe. It would be a good possibility if they were still moving between temporary locations, but they have that terrain mined. They're probably planning on holding still if anything short of a major strike team comes at them, and knowing the War, they might hold their ground even then. Pushing them into mobility gives us an advantage, and they're probably smart enough to notice that."

"So we split up," I say, and ignore the nudge against my ankle under the table. Like this wasn't the plan all along; we're just adding a third party to the mix. If Zhune wanted to have input in this plan, he should've said something sooner. "Throw some noise at this side, with someone ready to run, and see who comes boiling out to investigate. Look at the cover around this place. They can't afford to sit tight and take the chance that Lightning would just--" I pause, and have to think about this one. " _Would_ Lightning just burn the place down around their ears? I've heard rumors of how noisy you can get."

"Depends on how 'It'd be nice to have that stuff back' weighs against 'It'd be nice to not let anyone else have that stuff,'" Kai says, and shrugs. "In this case, no, we are not willing to set the compound on fire, containment issues entirely aside. They...might be able to guess that."

"Guess, sure. But can they _count_ on it? They'll have to send someone out to take a look." I check the scale suggested by the width of the road at the edge of the image we're looking at, and try to work out how far apart these buildings are. "Two people on the house, one on the gym. If we're right, and they're all in the house, that'll thin the crowd, and we can try smash-and-grab accordingly. If we're wrong, and they're all that gym, we'll _know_ once they come looking, and we can plan from there. They'll put at least two people into investigating the noise, because going alone is _stupid_." Though I have my doubts about the wits of any Warriors who think attacking Lightning blatantly is a good plan. On the other hand, Lightning did send a single Ofanite out to track this down, so maybe their reputation for disproportionate retribution is exaggerated.

...back on the first hand, I think this Ofanite is suggesting that she would have happily tackled four to six Warriors _on her own_ if we hadn't run into her first, so maybe Lightning knows exactly what they're doing. But if she has any shiny Sparky weaponry, I wish she'd bring it out and offer to share.

"Which leaves two people with three to four people to work around, in a single house. I expect you can be quiet, and I can be quiet, but that's still potentially awkward." Kai sits back, and looks between the two of us thoughtfully. "No Impudites at hand?"

"Planning on murdering a few monkeys?" Zhune asks.

"I'd rather not," Kai says, "but at this point it'd be careless to assume it couldn't happen, either. Anyway, I'll take that as a no." She wipes remnants of foam out of her mug with a finger, and considers the image while licking that off. "Who wants to get noisy and then run from it?"

"...wait a minute," I say, as an earlier comment finally grabs me by the mind and makes itself known. "You said something about the area being mined?"

"Yes, didn't you notice?" Kai blinks at me, then Zhune. "...you were walking around back there and you didn't _notice_?"

"Theft," I say, "not--whatever Word spends a lot of time walking through a minefield. Seriously. Mines?"

"Not many, and pretty simple ones. Easy enough to avoid. Just keep an eye on where you're stepping. Probably nothing lethal, either, but it draws a lot of attention if one goes off, and I _hate_ losing limbs. It's such a pain to get those back on, and if a foot goes missing, talk about a reduction in escape options." She draws a sequence of lines across the image with her finger, then has to stop and readjust the napkin to make a reasonably smooth surface for the projection again. "Most of them are in these places. That I noticed. If you need to move faster than you can watch where you step, try to make it _really_ fast, or stay off the ground."

"What kind of noise do we want?" I lean in, and crush a frog with my elbow. The squishy little thing didn't have much of a life expectancy anyway, especially in an environment where it might get turned into spill control at any moment. "Since apparently setting fire to the building is out." Which gets me another nudge under the table, and I flick a sweet smile back at Zhune in response.

"The area's not under a burn ban, but let's keep the wildfires to plan E," Kai says. "Again with the getting yelled at during the debriefing. Good noise would be something that implies a hit team is coming in and clearing the ground of hostiles for their approach. Anyone have Harmony or Thunder?"

"I don't suppose you have any shiny summonable weapons that make a lot of noise when they go off?" I ask in turn, because damned if we'll be the first ones forced to reveal technical information.

"I have a yoyo," Kai says. "Easier to carry, less likely to cause trouble if someone takes it from me, and, unfortunately in this case, pretty quiet. Sorry. They don't let me check anything out from the special weapons locker, unless I requisition a Cherub attuned to the equipment first. No Songs, either. But more to the point, I need to be on the house team, because first, you want to keep an eye on what I get up to, and second, ditto, and third, we're looking for different things in there. Your grab-and-run is a nice diversion for mine, but doesn't get me anything useful."

I hook a thumb towards Zhune. "Which means he makes a big noise, because I'm not risking the 'run while being shot at' part myself when I could be doing some good old-fashioned housebreaking."

Zhune makes a show of thinking this over, but what's he going to argue? That I can go invisible for a while, so he should housebreak with the angel, since he can deal with any remaining concentration inside better... Sure, that's not a bad point. But I don't trust him to take care of that properly. With the way he's been lately, he'd get distracted by trying to set her up, instead of focusing on the job.

He shrugs one shoulder, and says to me, "We need fallback positions for if this all blows up in our faces. Go set a few up." He passes me a wad of cash and the car keys under the table, and grips my wrist for a moment. The standard signal for _I'm letting you run this. Do not fuck it up._

Oh, but I can work with that. Though I will have some damn words for my partner if I come back and find he's misplaced the not-Sparky. Or gotten himself damaged in trying to do so. "Sure," I say, and slide my chair back. "Don't start any of the fun without me."

"If you could hurry," Kai says politely, as she snaps her phone shut, the image vanishing from the table, "that would also be good. I'd like to start this before sunset. They were throwing around a lot of Essence during the raid, and I'd rather hit while they're still low."

And she has no idea how low on Essence the two of us are. If my partner were on better terms with that Marquis, we might've asked for a refill, or even a loan, but--never mind. We'll cope. Essence isn't everything.


	13. An Interlude, In Which Other People Talk

When the Calabite had gone, Zhune shifted to her seat. A better place to watch the door, and a better place to watch the angel. At this rate he might need to carry around listening devices again, and slap one on his partner every time she moved out of his sight.

He did not appreciate the way the angel was studying him, because she did not look near wary enough, nor so careless as to be set up for tripping. She was watching him in a way that suggested she had seen many people like him before, and was waiting to see which subcategory he fell into by his response.

"You," he said, "are trying to seduce my partner," because angels were often best distracted and delayed by the pure truth.

"I wouldn't say 'seduce,' exactly." She smiled at him across the table and its array of trash. "But I'm supposed to give demons the pitch for my side, just as much as you do the reverse. Did you want to give that a shot?" The offer open, in easy curiosity, as if it didn't matter what he said or did. What a smug creature she was.

"Do you expect Judgment to appreciate that offer?" he asked, as pleasantly as if she were already under his control.

"They sort of expect it of me by now," she said.

"You must have the most fascinating discussions with them."

"I do," she said, and tilted her head to one side, hands busied with napkin debris. "You say that like I should be defensive about it, or worried about what they'll say, but I'm not. It's their business to make sure I'm not getting into more trouble than I ought, and they do their job well. They're not perfect, and we don't always agree, but I trust them to see the truth of things even better than I can. So why should I worry about dealing with them in the future?"

"That," he said, "is the speech of someone who has never been investigated, or put on trial."

"And there you'd be wrong," she said. "I've messed up before. They've called me on it. Here I am, doing better than I was before they told me how I should've acted instead."

"What a touching degree of faith you have in Heaven's internal police," Zhune said. "Is that why they let you speak with demons?"

"Possibly," she said, and shrugged fluidly. "Or maybe it's because I get good results. Or because it's very hard to push an Ofanite of Creation. Or because they think I can handle this. The Game pinned me down, once, and tried to convince me to switch sides." Her gray eyes were luminous, and her smile thin. "That did not end well for them. Didn't end all that well for me, either, so don't take this as me making grandiose claims. But this might go better for us if we're all on the same page."

He wondered how old she was. He did not spend much time wondering what she might do to his partner, because that was something he had under control. No Ofanite with quick feet and a dashing smile would steal his partner away; that was the threat of Seraphim and Cherubim, who made long plans and waited to see them through. "I'm certain we are," he said. "Don't you feel compelled to give me the recruitment speech?"

"I think," she said, "that you've heard it before, and you're gearing up to try to pick holes in it. Which you could probably do if I tried to lay it out as an argument. We're not perfect, and what guarantees can I make? But generally I don't see people argued into Heaven anyway. They have to want something to get to the edges of it, and they have to be willing to give something up to step all the way through. What are you willing to give up from what you are, to get what you really want?"

Nothing. What he wanted could always best be acquired by making it part of himself, wrapping it deep into his own nature and never letting go. Nothing worth having was ever acquired by giving up something inside himself. "That," he said, "was the least convincing recruitment speech I've heard yet."

"But not the least convincing I've ever made," she said, with an annoying degree of cheer, "because I'm not in Trauma. How are you feeling about this plan?"

"If I had any objections," Zhune said, "I would have voiced them earlier." He wished, not for the first time, that he could turn angels into his servants with a touch as easily as he could humans. How useful that would be. And perhaps how likely to send all of Heaven, and a portion of Hell beside, ready to destroy every Djinn of Theft they so identified. Balance in all things, or at least in all things one eventually had to reveal to the enemy. 

"That is a lot fewer objections than my supervisor will have when I put this in my next report," said the angel, "so maybe you're seeing some virtues in it that I'm not. Pity that I don't have better to recommend. Are her plans _always_ like this, or is this a special one just for me?"

"They're always like this," Zhune said, as no lie he could think of would be a more useful response than the truth.

"Wow," said the Ofanite. "It must be like working with me. Probably a good thing there's someone else around to watch out for her, then, because I get the feeling Princes aren't as understanding about hitting Trauma as Archangels are."

"From your perspective," Zhune said, with a delicious care for each word, "shouldn't you prefer that none of us watch out for each other, to make your job easier?"

If nothing else, it made the angel pause before responding.

"No," she said, "not really. I can wish you would all get over yourselves and come join our side, and I can wish you caused less trouble on Earth, and I could wish you hurt people less. But it's not contradictory to wish that demons would hurt each other less, too, even if it sometimes makes my job easier. I can be against pain and suffering, and betrayal and loneliness and cruelty, all on principle. Even when these things are happening to people who may well deserve it. If demons can't find an ounce of love or respect from each other, how are they supposed to believe it exists anywhere else?"

"Why should they believe in any such thing?" Zhune asked, and considered stealing everything in her pockets. On principle. It was well within his capabilities, and when she inevitably noticed--no, there was no reason, he had made that point once. More useful to let her believe such harassment already done with, herself in control and her plans secure, until proving otherwise was most useful to him.

"Because it's true," she said, "even if they haven't witnessed it themselves. There's a quote about faith; I'm sure you've heard it before. There are plenty of things I believe are true without having encountered them firsthand."

"Justice," Zhune said.

"I was thinking 'the existence of certain Archangels,' but I'll accept either answer." She tilted her chair back, hands tucked behind her head. "I'm tired of sitting around here, and we're done planning. Can our mutual paranoia get us through a trip to that sandwich shop over there while we wait for your friend to get back?"

"It's not paranoia," Zhune said, "if the intent to harm really exists."

She dropped the chair back down, and was on her feet faster, more gracefully, than any mortal could have made that transition. Simple and swift, and a reminder to be careful. "True," she said, her smile as fast as the rest of her movements. "Paranoid sandwiches, then? I'm buying. Gotta use this expense account for something."


	14. In Which Everything Goes According To Plan

The angel keeps point out places not to step, and it's making me twitchy. Even when she's indicating a spot six feet away and behind a tree. Especially when I look at the spot and still can't see any sign that it would be a bad idea to step there. Minefields are not part of the standard challenge set for Theft jobs, and I am feeling distinctly unfriendly towards that Marquis right now. She couldn't have hired some Free Lilim who temped with the War and know how these things work?

Except she'd have to pay _them_. And, depressing as the thought is, I may be the only Magpie she could grab on short notice who has any insider experience with the War. Assuming she's even aware of that, and didn't tag us with the grudge against Zhune foremost in mind.

I would like to get through this with every objective on her list ticked off, and no major loss on our part, just to prove I can. Theft picked me, rather than the other way around, but as long as I'm stuck with it I can be a professional about the job. And if I'm a professional anything, I will be a god damn expert.

Still. Minefields. These are beyond the call of duty.

Because I have no better choice than to stick with the person who can see potential explosions and detour around them, I follow Kai into a sort of cave formed of two twisted pine trees sweeping their branches low across the ground. The brown needles beneath my feet crunch more than I'd like. She crouches down, resting on toes and three fingers resting on the earth, and nods ahead.

The back porch of the house barely shows through the branches. A poorly maintained wooden deck, with a pile of junk in one corner, and a door with a security camera. Trivial, even if the door is alarmed.

"Can you open that quietly?" she murmurs.

I shoot her a look. "Can you walk through the door first?"

Her grin is answer enough, so I nod in return. No need to explain I'll resonate through inconvenient pieces of the security system; since my resonance doesn't make any disturbance (and I will never stop being grateful for that, or for being allowed to _keep_ that), she can assume I'm being a clever Thief to get us in.

And then we can find out what hits the first person through the door.

There's nothing to do but wait until Zhune drops his Song, over on the far side of the property. I sit back on my heels, and then keep having to shift around to find a position that doesn't make my toes ache or feel too shaky or put me in a bad place to move from quickly. Whereas the Ofanite beside me is perfectly still. Entirely unfair, and I'd doubt what she said about her Choir, until I realize her lips are moving, and her fingertips flex up and down in a rhythm against the ground. So they're not all jittery, impatient people who can't keep their hands off other people and other people's things. I suppose every Choir has its outliers, as much as every Band.

I shove a hand into one of the pockets on this hoodie, and find a receipt for some emergency supplies I bought and stashed in the car. When the paper crumbles between my fingers, it makes me feel slightly less twitchy. I have a plan, a partner, and an unreliable ally who I can stand behind when people start shooting. Between these three things, I can do this. I will do fine. I'm smart and sneaky and good at my job.

Thunder booms, and the wave of disturbance follows close behind, like lightning crack and the type of thunder that doesn't take any singing. I'm moving to my feet, but the Ofanite rests a hand on my shoulder, and--yes. I can wait. Until we hear the front door slam open, and _that's_ the cue for us to run for the back door.

I take out the security camera on the way, the alarm on the door a few seconds later. Could fiddle with the lock and picks to cover for resonating my way through that, but Kai has a key in hand--no, a talisman, for all that it's shaped like an old-fashioned key. She slips that into the lock, wiggles it once, and--exactly as promised--opens the door to step through first.

The room's dark, half-full of furniture that's all been shoved to the side to clear a path to the door. It used to be a laundry room, given the attachments on the wall, but now it holds nothing but junk. This can't be one of the War's more secure or well-used locations; everything about this place says it was bought as a bolthole, and given no more attention that was necessary to keep it such.

And Kai's already moving for the door leading further in. Which doesn't appear to be alarmed or trapped or locked, and I'm nervous because we're encountering no resistance at all, but that's why I'm letting the sturdy, speedy angel take the lead. If almost everyone ran off to try to chase Zhune--who will not be caught--we may not run into a guard until we reach the tech itself.

We move through a filthy kitchen (dark, with a dripping faucet) into an equally filthy living room, mud tracked in a broad trail across the room from the front door to a stack of locked silver cases as big as steamer trunks. A good dozen of them, stacked up tidily in pairs, and there is no one in here.

A locked metal briefcase leans against the trunks. One small unit next to all the big ones? If they stole data at all, as the Marquis supposed, and not only the equipment, I bet that's it.

The angel glances over all of this, and keeps moving.

What the hell does she _want_?

I should grab that case and run. Except I don't know if it's what I want, and if she's still searching for her target, that may well mean she knows something I don't know. Like what form the data was in when the War swiped it.

The only thing worse than running into trouble now would be grabbing the wrong thing and leaving with that, because there will not be a good second chance. I bite off any incipient cursing, and hurry to catch up as she vanishes down a hallway.

When I catch sight of her again, she's not even checking through the doorway near her, but staring at her phone. She holds it up, waves it a foot to the left, and then shoves it back in her pocket and--oh. Tracking device. I shouldn't forget that I'm working with Lightning, and for all that this angel is most interested in beating people with small blunt objects, she has the tech that I'm not used to working with.

I'd call that cheating, but I have my resonance. Fair enough.

She pulls open a door, and this time it's stairs down. A basement to a house that might be refilling with Warriors at any moment (and that was gunfire I just heard) is about the last place I want to be, but she's running down the stairs, and so--hell, so I follow. More slowly and more carefully.

The basement's lit, so we're not running completely into the dark. Two bare bulbs on opposite sides of the ceiling, and beneath one there's a man lying on a bare mattress. Not dead, because his chest's moving, but bruised and wearing bloody clothing, and his eyes are closed.

Kai's a dozen steps away from the stairs, and I'm on the last step, when a man neither of us saw steps into the light and slings an arm around her neck. Disturbance echoes past me with the use of about as much Essence as I could carry altogether, and the angel stumbles, spins about to stare at him.

He whips out a gun, but it's pointed at me. "Hold it right there," he says, pleasant voice and pleasant smile, though he's only watching me from the corner of his eye. "You move one step, and I will shoot you." And to the angel, "Kai, it is so good to see you, like you would not believe."

I raise my hands, and consider my options. Run for the exit, grab the case on the way, and hope no one else is coming? And hope that I don't get shot. Oh, I do not like the odds on that, and I'm not close enough to resonate that gun apart before a bullet hits me.

Back to plan A. Get caught deliberately, find out what's going on, seed in as much bad information as possible. "I'm not with her," I say.

"I bet you aren't," says the man with the gun, who is--vaguely familiar because I _have_ seen him before, back in that coffee shop. Charming the pants off the barista, checking in on us in that alcove, and I think I have just seen an angel get Charmed so hard her eyes crossed, because there is no other good explanation for what he spent Essence on that would have her standing there staring at him instead of beating his face in. "Come on, Kai," he says, with a pure Impudite smile, "you can't tell me that you don't recognize me over one vessel swap. Like I didn't recognize you. It's Jack."

"I didn't recognize you," she says, and I wonder if there's anything deep in her head screaming about how wrong this is. The last time someone Charmed me, it was--working as intended. Could not feel anything but admiration and loyalty and a horrible sincere affection until it wore off. Kai, at least, is still shooting worried glances towards the man on the mattress. "I need you to--"

He grabs her by the hand, still smiling. And his gun has not stopped pointing at me. "We'll get to that, sure. I can help you out. But I'm all out of Essence, and if you have any at all to spare, I could use the help."

"Sure," she says. "Like I ever remember to use any."

He draws in a deep breath. "God, Kai, you should learn a Song one of these days." Disturbance rattles again, far quieter than before, as he uses a Song, though I can't identify which or what its effects might be. With my luck, he's sending a message to one of the other Warriors. "Could you keep an eye on your not-friend for a minute? I get the uncomfortable feeling she's not as fond of humans as you are, and I'd hate for something to happen to that Soldier."

She looks at me thoughtfully, and if I had _any_ lingering hope of running away, it's gone now. "I wouldn't know for sure," she says. "But she's not here for the Soldier, so you might as well let her go."

"Somehow," says the Impudite, "I don't think my commander would like that option." He squeezes her hand. "Any more Essence than that? I could take another, if you have it." And he kisses her on the cheek when she nods. "Always knew I could count on you, Kai. Would you mind checking on the m--mortal? He's been out for hours, and I'm getting worried, but we're not exactly in a good position to go call in medical professionals."

He lets go of her to let her hurry to the human's side, and crouch down by the mattress. The gun twitches at me. "Come on over," he says, and I take that last step down. "Right over against that wall, where I can see you. Now give me a minute and I'll deal with you next."

I keep my hands where he can see them, and lean back against the wall. Pay no attention to the harmless Magpie. Who is wondering how this Impudite of the War knew the angel's name. They don't talk like old enemies, nothing like me and Sean. (But if Sean had a resonance like that, maybe we would have these kinds of conversations when we met up. Suddenly, getting hit by his creepy Mercurian resonance doesn't seem so bad.)

If he recognized her, he must've know she was with Lightning. That she'd be coming.

If he knew she was coming, and waited down here, he knew she wasn't after the tech.

Yeah, he knows a lot more about what's going on here, than I do, and I don't like that one bit. I'm supposed to be the one running with better intel and keeping a step ahead of everyone else. Instead I'm leaning against a wall, watching an angel check on her target.

She's here for the human. I'm here for the info.

I haven't betrayed her yet, but that's one more complication to watch out for. Outsmarted myself, which is probably some sort of cosmic retribution for the number of times I've outsmarted other people. But I might get lucky yet, and she may sell me out to her new Impudite friend, which would get me out of any lingering obligations.

And while I'm busy working out what I'm supposed to do in this situation, the Impudite takes a syringe out of his pocket and jabs Kai in the neck while she's bent over the human. "Sorry," he says, as she whirls about, her expression nothing but _hurt_ , like she's shocked that he'd do such a thing. "It's for your own good. If you try to kill my commanding officer before I can explain things, you'll end up dead, and neither of us wants that."

"Jack, we need to get _out_ of here," she says insistently, and leaps to her feet. "Help me get him out and we can talk about this later."

"You're not going anywhere," he says, ever so gently. I could almost believe he cares. "Sit down here and keep an eye on this guy, he's had a few rough days."

He turns his back on her, while she stands there, wobbling on her feet. "As for you," he says, gun leveled at my head, "who are you and what are you looking for?"

"Theft," I say, because I don't think pretending to be another angel would fly with either of them. "Take a wild guess as to what I wanted."

"And you just happened to fall in with Lightning," he says, and shoves the barrel of the pistol up under my chin. Which I'd find a lot more intimidating if I weren't able to resonate that weapon into uselessness with a strong thought. I'll save that reveal for a proper emergency. "Try again."

"She's telling the truth," Kai says, and her voice is starting to wobble at the edges. From tranquilizers rather than emotion, I'd guess. Based on a certain amount of experience with such things. "So far as I know."

"Kai, you have _got_ to stop hanging around with demons," the Impudite says, and smiles sharply at me. "That never goes well. Sit down if you're feeling woozy, and I'll be back soon." He grabs my collar, and yanks me away from the wall. (Stronger than me? Definitely. I can tell that even without fighting.) "Let's go have a chat with some more convincing people."

This will not be fun, but strictly speaking, it's going according to plan.

And I can maintain this thought on the walk upstairs, and standing in the living room by those piles of trunks, with the Impudite breathing down my neck and the Ofanite keeling over slowly downstairs, right up until the front door opens and Regan walks through the door.

She doesn't recognize me in this vessel. She can't. Even if she's staring daggers at me, but that's surely only because I'm a stranger standing by her stolen equipment, and--oh, yes, she's seen me in a vessel that looks like this one before (why couldn't the Boss give me a completely _different_ look when he gave me another vessel?) and knows full well I'm Theft, but she doesn't know I'm me. So we're fine. I'm probably not dying in the next thirty seconds over that, anyway.

"The other one's in the basement," the Impudite says briskly, "and contained. Don't worry about that one. What do you want with the extra?"

"I'll take her upstairs and run an interrogation," Regan says, and the gun pressed into my spine twitches against me.

"Really? We aren't exactly full of spare personnel to waste on--"

Regan gives this demon pushing me around a proper Balseraph stare. She's always been able to take control of a room just by walking into it, and she's as beautiful as ever. Sleek and tall, long dark hair and fierce dark eyes, and this vessel's acquired a scar across one cheek that is utterly perfect. "Did that sound like I wanted your opinion, Jack? If we're overrun with prisoners, shoot the one downstairs. In fact, do that if the others return with the third that they're chasing. Three would be a bit much in one house. Don't you think?"

"Understood," says the Impudite.

I get the feeling he's hoping his coworkers don't return with another prisoner, and isn't that _interesting_. Maybe even something I can work with, but I'll think about that later. Regan gestures imperiously at me, so I trot over to her side like I have nothing better to do with my day than follow her every command.

Strictly speaking, this is all going according to plan. Good?


	15. An Interlude, In Which It Turns Out I'm Not The Only One With A Complicated Relationship With An Ex

Jack had to drag his friend back downstairs, two stumbling steps at a time as she twisted about in his grip and couldn't break free. And a damn good thing it was that he'd reached the door before she had, or someone would have shot her.

Which he was tempted to explain to her, right there, but Kai had never been good about long-term planning once she had her mind set on something, and he doubted that had changed any in the last few years.

"Let go of me," she said, no better at breaking free of his hands than a human would be. "Jack--"

"Sit down," he said, and tried to show her that he _was_ still her friend, despite her obstinate behavior. But it slide off her, which was a disappoint, but never a surprise. Angels were almost as hard to Charm as demons, and more likely to take the mere attempt personally.

So he sat her down on the floor, and settled down with her, his hands locked around her wrists. Though she hadn't made any move yet to grab an object and make it lethal against him. Of course not. She wouldn't hurt him, any more than he'd hurt her.

And if the men came back with another demon--where did Kai pick these strays up, anyway?--he'd shoot that one himself, and claim to be following orders. Keep it down to two, and the one downstairs would be more useful.

"I can't believe you're doing this," Kai said wearily. It was a terrible note in her voice. She should never sound _tired_. "You didn't even stop them from killing that other Soldier. I thought you would've done that much."

"That was an accident," Jack said, the anger he'd been putting aside as _not part of the mission_ creeping back into his mind and his voice. "They tried to stuff the Shedite into her, and the idiot Djinn panicked when it bounced out and she tried to break free. If they'd let me handle it, like I told them, she would still be alive."

"And this is how the ones you handle end up?"

Jack glanced over the human on the mattress. "He's still alive, isn't he? And with all his limbs and digits attached. This is a war, Kai, and people do get hurt, but I try my best."

"It's a war," she said quietly, "and you're on the wrong side."

"I'm on the winning side," he said, more sharply than he'd meant to. She was always such an optimist, and he couldn't hold it against her. It was one of the things he liked best about her. "Kai, I'm thrilled to see you again, but I'm on the clock, here. You need to listen to me and do what I say if you want to get out of this alive."

"You need to help me get that man out of here," she said, and he let her grip his collar. Her eyes weren't focusing very well, not with that amount of tranquilizer running through her system, but she was still trying to focus on his face. All her attention on him, even without the Charm to justify it. "That's all I need. I don't care about the equipment or any of that, Jack, you know they never send me in for that kind of thing. And you _know_ there'll be a strike team here eventually. That was not a clean enough raid to keep you safe for long. Help me, and you'll--I don't _know_ what happens after that, but you'll be okay for a while, and we can figure something out. Please."

"I remember when it was you and me," Jack said. "We were such a great team. And here they go, sending you in here alone. So alone that you picked up a _demon_ as backup, Kai. Those people don't deserve you."

"So that would be a no." She shivered, and sat back. "I hate this, Jack. What you're doing to me. Where you are. This whole situation. How could you?"

"It's easy," he said. "As easy as one foot in front of the other." He cupped her face in his hands. A terrible vessel for her, too tall and sharp-edged, when she should've been wearing a body like that demon's. Small and fast and adorable and ready to destroy everything she touched. "It doesn't hurt, Kai. It's freeing. Letting go of what locked you down. You have no idea how simple and perfect it is to Fall."

"I'm not afraid of pain," Kai said, "or dying, and I am already as free as I could ever want to be." She closed her eyes, and toppled toward him, leaning her forehead on his shoulder. "Jack, why can't you come back home?"

"I'm already home," he said, and petted her hair down. "It just took me a while to find it."

"Run away with me," she said against his shoulder. "We'll fix this. It's never too late."

"Run away with me," he said lightly. "Crack your Heart, and I'll break mine. The two of us can run free together, without any Superiors telling us what to do. We'll go wherever we want, and do whatever we like. Like old times. Would you do that for me?"

"No," she said, barely audible. "There are people counting on me."

"I would've done it for you," he said. "Maybe that's been the problem all along, Kai. If you loved me enough, we'd still be together."

"That's not _fair_ ," she mumbled. "Jack, I can't even stand up. This is horrible. How could you?"

"Better than getting you killed," he said, and laid her down on the floor. He stripped her coat off and emptied its pockets. Searched the pockets in her trousers, and emptied those too. Then he pulled her hands back and wired her thumbs together, and followed that up with the same wire looped around her wrists and elbows. That wouldn't be comfortable, and might well cause some bleeding, but--better bleeding than dead. And if she killed any of the others, he wouldn't be able to keep Regan from deeming this prisoner superfluous. Not worth the trouble.

He draped the jacket back over her, and folded a sleeve under her head to act as a pillow. Of what he'd taken from her pockets, he transferred most of that to his own, except for the phone and the old key.

"It's nice to know you're still using this," he said, and got no response from her. Even with her eyes closed, he didn't trust that she was asleep--tranquilizers were uncertain enough on human bodies, much less angelic vessels--but she certainly wasn't about to run off in the next half hour or so. Enough time for him to come up with a good reason to hold onto her, until--

Until. He didn't know what. This wasn't the right setup, nothing like the ones he'd planned, for talking her around properly. Not with Lightning on her heels, an officer with her own agenda, work to be done and unknown demons cluttering up the situation. God, if he could just have her for a week or two somewhere safe and quiet, with a Habbalite or competent Balseraph working backup for him, a friendly Calabite to show what she could be, he might _get_ somewhere. This was all wrong. The best he could do would be to keep her out of Trauma, and he might not even manage that.

He slid the key back into her back pocket, and petted her hair. "I'll be back soon," he said. "Hold tight and don't do anything stupid, please."

When Jack left the basement, he locked the door behind him, for whatever good that might do.

Three men clattered through the front door, weapons held in a reasonably competent manner and otherwise nothing to think highly of. He kept his irritated sigh entirely internal. It was never good for morale to show how little he thought of the soldiers under his command. That was Regan's job. "Take this," he said, and tossed the phone to the Shedite, who missed the catch. They really shouldn't let demons out of Hell before they picked up a ninth Force--but then maybe this would be no team at all, him and Regan trying to do everything as a pair. What a horrifying thought. Better to have semi-competent cannon fodder than none at all. "Take it into town," he said patiently, while the Shedite scrambled to pick the phone up from the ground, "and find a car at a gas station with no one in it. Put the phone in the car. Then come straight back here. Keep an eye out for Lightning."

The Shedite scurried out, leaving him with the Djinn and the useless, distractible Hellsworn, which was even worse than a new-fledged demon. Worse than an unAware human, too, as the man kept spending his Essence at the first sign of danger, instead of letting Jack take it and use it properly. "Back to patrolling," he told the human.

"I'm not arguing, sir," the man said, "but it's been--I've been at this for a long time. When do I get a break?"

"When Simon gets back," Jack said, and clapped the man on the shoulder. "Pop another caffeine pill and get to it. You'll be fine." He turned to the Djinn once the human was out. "You didn't find _anyone_ out there?"

"No one," the Djinn said, and didn't even bother to shrug to display the depth of his apathy. "Might've set off a Song with a...thing. Artifact. One-use type. Seen 'em sold."

"Maybe," Jack said, and glanced upstairs. "I expect Regan will find out for us." Assuming that she didn't get distracted by a pretty face and someone new to shove around. With any luck she'd run the interrogation fast, get bored, and kill that demon, removing any arguments about having too many prisoners. Then he could make a case for keeping _his_ alive until...well.

Until something. He'd come up with something. He always did.


	16. In Which I Make Up With My Ex

The floorboards creak alarmingly when we leave the stairs for the second floor hallway. Even aside from the bad lighting and the smell of mold, this house has growing structural problems. And possibly carpenter ants. "Have you considered getting a caretaker for this place?" I ask, but keep up the pace as she marches me down the hall with a hand on the back of my neck. Better than a gun barrel there, as the Impudite would no doubt prefer. "Because otherwise someone will bolt here in an emergency and take casualties from falling through the floor."

"If I wanted your opinion on the architecture," Regan says, "I would ask for it." She shoves me towards a door, so I push it open before my face can run into the wood.

When she lets go of me to shut the door behind us, I take a few steps away. Nice and slow, with my hands where she can see them. This was a decent storage room for Soldiers, once, with two sets of bunkbeds and a couch shoved against a wall. All the bedding's wrinkled and dusty, and I am not sure I would want to touch that section of the wall with the big gray stain. "You don't want my opinion on interior design either, do you?"

"You should be taking this more seriously," she says, and it takes me a moment to figure out what's wrong with that sentence. It's the part where it doesn't sound enough like a threat. I turn back to look at her, since shuttered windows and a stained couch aren't nearly as easy on the eyes as her vessel. "Aren't you worried about the part where I might shoot you outright for trying to steal what's mine?"

"I didn't lay a hand on anything of yours," I say promptly, and display empty hands. "Besides, I thought you wanted to ask a few questions. Afterwards, why bother shooting me? I clearly broke into the wrong house, and I'm not stupid enough to press the issue now that I've figured that out."

"Do you think I'll believe that?"

"You might," I say, and flash her my best smile.

She slams me up against the wall with a hand to my throat. It's marvelously familiar, including the part where I can't breathe well. At least it wasn't the section of wall with the stain. "And did you think," she says, "that I wouldn't find out?" Her thumb presses in against my jugular. "You were never as smart as you thought you were, Leo."

Well. That's a complication.

I make a strangled sort of questioning noise, which is not exactly confirmation or denial of what she's said. But that's not a _wild guess_ , either. Regan's afraid of losing face in front of other demons the way some people are afraid of losing an arm, and she would not say that as a guess unless she intended to shoot me if she guessed wrong. Which--okay. That's plausible. She might.

"You've betrayed me twice over," she says. "Destroyed my plans, made me look a fool for trusting you, had me stabbed and shot--twice by angels--and nearly derailed my career. Do you have anything to say for yourself?" She loosens her grip just enough that I can speak, though it won't be comfortable.

"It's good to see you again," I say. "I've missed you. And since you got me killed _twice_ , and threw the Game at me at least once, I figure we're even."

She arches a look at me, down that long straight nose, so Balseraph in every angle of her face that it's like a punch in the chest. Remembering better times with her. "We are not even. You owe me for all the trouble you've caused me." Which is true enough, much as I'd like to argue the point. But never argue with the Balseraph with all the weapons. "Is that Kyriotate skulking around behind you this time?"

"No," I say, which is even true. "Fell not long after she ran into you, which should be no surprise, with the way she was throwing human hosts into combat. I think she ended up with Factions."

"Tell me who you came with," she says, loosening her grip further, "and I may yet decide to let you live."

"That's a terrible negotiating point, but as long as you ask so nicely..." My smile's more lopsided, and thus more likely to look plausible to her. There's always a fine line to walk with her between cowering and arguing; she won't respect the former, and she'll feel compelled to beat down the latter. Best to do everything she tells me to, with enough backtalk to make sure she knows when I disagree. "The Thunder was a distraction from this weasely little Impudite I dragged in to help me. He set it off and bolted, and I don't expect to see him again any time soon. The one in the basement is some sort of angel of Lightning that I talked into helping me. Same goal and all that, right? I figured I'd let her stand in front of bullets while I ran off with the stuff, but--it turns out the job wasn't exactly as described, and your Impudite took care of jumping her. Not my problem anymore."

There's a trick to lying to Balseraphs. Give them so much detail that when they inevitably assume you're lying about something, they'll pick the wrong point to interrogate you on, and you can confess accordingly.

"You never could shut up once you started talking," she says, with her particular brand of scornful affection. It's like being back in college again, when I was happier and more naive. "What about that Magpie you were working with last time? Tall, dark-haired, _stole our weapons shipment_."

"We worked together for a few years, and then we split up," I say, with a one-shouldered shrug. "It's Theft, Regan. We're not so good with permanent arrangements. If you want to yell at him about that shipment, I can try to find you a description of his current vessel, but not exactly a mailing address."

"Less yelling, more murder," Regan says, and dismisses that conversational route with a tap of her fingers against my jaw. "Just look at you, Leo. All that time you spent complaining about the vessel the General gave you, and what do you have now?"

"Nothing I picked out, believe me." That honest disgust on my part gets a smirk from her. Good. This is a safer topic of conversation than some. "But it does a good job of not drawing attention from old acquaintances, doesn't it?"

"It's also easy to remember when your old 'acquaintances' start looking for information," she says, and slides her fingers in to squeeze at my throat again. I'm going to end up with bruises there, and--oh I do not want to try to explain what happens if she touches me the wrong way there. Some stories are too embarrassing to even make up lies for. Conversely, I'm going to have to explain all these bruises to Zhune at some point. It's a good thing he doesn't take people beating me up half so seriously as he does people having sex with me.

"Which answers my question about how you figured it out," I say, my voice gaspy around her hand. "So what do you want from me now?"

"Your cooperation," Regan says. "You're lucky my second spotted you on the way in, and wanted to take prisoners. If you make any move towards more of that nonsense, I'll break your legs and throw you to my men to play with when they've earned a reward. If you do what I say--properly, with no backtalk--then I'll make it worth your while."

"That's awfully vague."

"That's the best you'll get," she says sharply, and finally, finally lets go of my throat entirely. She takes a half step back, looking me up and down again from this distance. "It's better than you deserve. I could do whatever I wanted with you, and who'd have reason to complain?"

"You've always done whatever you wanted with me," I point out. "That's our whole relationship, right there."

"True," Regan says, and grabs my shirt and hoodie together in two fistfuls of fabric to haul me up for a kiss.

Which. Yes. I am for. I end up on my tiptoes, head tilted back, mouth open for whatever she's interested in and oh the shameless nostalgia that's running through me right now, for what we used to have together. Something broken and dishonest and self-serving, but it was so good while it lasted. Her tongue inside my mouth and her teeth on my lip, the way she tastes and the tightness in my chest for being back here with her, all these things are what I _want_ , and how often do I get what I want anymore?

She bites my lip hard enough to draw blood, but not all the way through, which is her way of showing that she's willing to play nice if I will. And then lets me lower back down on my heels, while she looks down her nose at me. Perfect Balseraph arrogance, with that one scar below her eye to keep the perfection from turning boring. "I've missed you," she says. "You never should have left me."

"I know."

"You should have stayed with me, and done everything I said." What she says is true, and I will let it be true, because there's no reason to argue over this. Because it feels better to believe her without thinking too hard about the details, at least for a little while. She presses me against the dirty wall, one hand to the center of my chest, and unbuttons my jeans. "Running away from me was the worst mistake you ever made."

"I've missed you too," I tell her. Which is also true.

Regan slides her hand inside my jeans. "Idiot Destroyer," she says fondly. "If you had stayed with me, you could be my second down there right now. It'll take ages to get this fixed."

I like the way her fingers are sliding down across me, even if her hand's dry and cold against my skin. I do not like this direction of the conversation. "I already have a job, you know."

"Scavenging from other people's kills," she says, and pinches two fingers together, then presses in with her thumb. "What a waste of your mind. Look at how this attempt went. You're trapped and helpless, and you'll only live through this because I happen to like you. Imagine," she says, squeezing her fingers together more tightly, "what might happen if someone else had caught you. Or if I didn't like you quite this much."

I swallow, and wonder when my mouth turned so dry. "Then it's a good thing you like me," I say, as lightly as I can. "Since I don't think your Impudite does."

"Only because he doesn't know you're a Calabite," she says, fingers shifting back and forth with me between them. "Maybe we shouldn't tell him. Jack likes Calabim in the worst way. He likes to seduce them and play with them and pick them apart to find out what makes them tick. Lucky for you that he hasn't been so clever or resourceful as to earn a reward. Yet."

My spine's pressed against the wall for support, and my feet slide a few inches further apart. I'd prefer to try this on a bed, but all of the furniture in this room looks filthier than the walls. "You wouldn't--"

"I might," she say, and her smile is thin and cold as her knives. Which she has not brought out yet, so she must still love me. "If you're a tricky little Thief, some dirty Magpie trying to take what's mine, why shouldn't I? Let him have you first, and then the rest of the men. The Shedite will take anything, and even the humans would like you. And the Djinn would be happy enough to take what was left at the end. He prefers his toys broken enough that they can't move around and bother him while he's playing."

"You wouldn't," I say, and choke back a gasp when she slides a finger inside me. "You wouldn't give me to _humans_ , Regan. You have standards. It's one of the things I've always liked about you."

"Not to the Soldiers," she admits. "As for the rest, it depends." Her clever long fingers move inside me and outside me all at once, thumbnail pressing into a place that makes me twitch back against the wall, though it won't let me go any further. Not unless I start resonating my way through. "If you're working for me, I'll take care of you. Like I always do. If you're trying to steal from my project, you're only useful to me as a reward. To distribute."

"I can give you three days." And there is no need to fake the unsteadiness in my voice. "The job's clearly _off_ , and my client can go hang."

She kisses me deep, and adds another finger to pressing deeper inside me. "Who sent you?" she asks, when she breaks away from the kiss. Which is almost a promise of another if she likes my answer.

And she will never believe easy answers. I squirm a bit against the wall, dragging against the fabric of the hoodie where it's bunched up between my shoulder blades. "I'm not supposed to talk about that. Bad business."

She presses her teeth together at my jugular, and bites down hard enough to make me gasp, while between my legs her fingers turn fingernails against me. Which is not so much punishment as warning, because I don't mind, not if she'll go back to what she was doing in a moment. "Dying," she tells me, "is also bad for business. Try again."

I grab a kiss from her. She tastes like the blood from my lip, or maybe that's what I taste like, I can't tell. What both of us taste like together. "Tech," I say, when she pulls her face away from me. "And you didn't hear it from me."

"They could ask, if they wanted it so badly," she says, with the hint of a frown. But her fingers aren't digging nails into me anymore, even if they've gone annoyingly still. "We work with them all the time."

"Sure, if they wanted to run through the formalities, and let on as to what this tech does. Someone wanted to get it away from you before anyone found out the details." I shrug like it doesn't matter to me either way. "Like I ask the details? And they gave me none of the right details anyway. If I'd known you were here, I never would've tried to steal from _you_. I should know better."

"You should," she says, and her fingers start up again. They're not so dry anymore, nor am I, and I want surface to sink down on, a better place to rest than this wall. I want to pull her down on top of me and take my clothes off and let her do anything at all, so long as she's still convinced herself she loves me again. I don't know how long that'll last. "You're working for me, now. So you should tell me everything."

"Of course. Whatever you say."

That must've been a good line, because she kisses me again, and doesn't bite at all. Her fingers stroke in and across, right where I want them, because I'm where she wants me and she doesn't have to lie to me for me to believe in this. For a little while. For as long as I'm working for her, anyway. Three days of my time and then I skip out and catch up with Zhune and of course she'll be angry, but when isn't she angry at me? I can't offer her better than that.

She pulls her mouth away, and takes her hand from my chest to the back of my head. A cushion against the wall and her fingers wrapped tight in my hair, until it hurts. "We'll get you transferred," she says. "We'll make it work this time. You've learned better, and I'll keep you under control."

"I'm not sure this is a good plan," I say, and tuck a foot around her ankle to try to encourage her to come in a little closer, move a little faster, stop talking when we could be doing. "Three days I can give you, but my Boss is likely to object to anything beyond that."

"We'll be moving soon anyway," she says, with a dismissive sniff. "No need to worry about idiot dissonance conditions like yours for a while yet." She pulls a finger away from petting to add to the those inside me, and cracks a smile at the sound I make. "Don't worry your pretty little head about the details, Leo."

"You are such a--" I can't get the word out because of the kiss, which goes on forever, like we could be here forever with her digging inside of me with tongue and fingers and making me hers all over again. Like I used to be. Like I never really was. Like we could make it work this time.

(Of course it won't work. Zhune would kill her. Then find a way to make me pay for the attempt. And I don't want this anyway, not long-term, but why think about that right now when this is exactly what I want?)

She pulls her fingers out of me, and draws her hand out of my jeans, wiping her fingers clean on the hem of my shirt, right before I get where I thought she was taking me. And of course she _knows_ what she's doing, smirking down at me like that. "Do you have your old vessel too," she asks mildly, "or only this one?"

"Only this one," I say.

"We can get that fixed," she says, and shoves down on my head. I know how this goes, how to fall to my knees and rest my face against her legs. Her fingers pull painfully on my hair, dragging me into place. "Two vessels for you, like I have two, so that I have plenty of options."

"I don't think my Prince will agree to this."

"Shut up, Leo," she says, "and make yourself useful. I told you that I would take care of the details."

She lets me use my hands long enough to open up her pants, and then swats them away. Won't let me hold onto her legs to brace myself, either, so I end up with my heels pressed against the wall, hands clasped behind my back, while I lean in and try to show her that I do remember what we used to be like. She taught me what she wanted out of me back in cramped sweaty dorm rooms, when we were young and stupid and desperate enough in the strange world of mortals to cling to anyone else who made sense.

And I fell in love with her, I think, not only because she was beautiful and confident and willing to take me, but because after a lifetime of Habbalah fucking with my head, the Balseraph resonance was so sweet and gentle in comparison.

I will believe anything she tells me, so long as she lets me stay like this.

"You should have stayed with me," she says, while I work with tongue and lips and try to make this vessel do what's something of an old memory and attached to other bodies. "You panicked, and I still could have solved that, even your running, if it hadn't been for that idiot feathersnake interfering." One hand twists my hair, and the other strokes my cheek. "But I showed her, didn't I? That's Flowers for you, still not caught up with the invention of the bow and arrow, and thinking that an attunement like that is any good against a rifle. I put a bullet between her eyes, and I'll admit it, Leo, I was thinking of you when I did that. Of what we could have been if people would stop interfering."

She hisses as I finally get the right movement down, the rhythm she wants, the places she wants. This would be easier if she'd let me use my hands. That's why she never lets me.

"You thought you could run away." She laces her fingers behind my head, and pulls me in tight, so near it's hard for me to do this properly. A challenge to work through, to prove that I can. I wish she'd let me _touch_ her in other ways. Maybe after this. Maybe if she gets out the other vessel. (Though surely she can't afford the Essence, disturbance, time. She's on the clock as much as I am.) "And here you are, back again. You can never stay away from me, Leo. You need to work for me, or you need to die, and I'd rather have you working for me. You'll be fine. You've always wanted that."

That hiss is the sound of a Balseraph, and if I close my eyes I can imagine the way she truly looks. Sleek with scales and leather wings, fangs against my skin, six dark eyes, inhuman in the best way. I would like to see that again. I would do almost anything to see that again.

"Hurry up," Regan says. "I have things to do, Leo."

I hurry. Press my face in and try to show her that I do remember everything we used to be. That I have not forgotten how good we were together.

And when she's done with me, she shoves me back so hard my head bounces off the wall.

But that's fair. She's not a Djinn. She's allowed to hurt me.

"Good girl," she says, and smirks at my expression while she zips back up. "Get up, Leo. I don't have all day."

I get to my feet, less steady than I might like. And remember to button my jeans again. "You're the boss here, right? You can take as long as you want."

"I could," she says, "but that would be a touch irresponsible, don't you think?" She flicks two fingers at me in a come-along gesture, and walks out of the room, expecting me to follow. With her back turned to me like it's safe.

Which it is.

I follow her down the hall to a bathroom, the sink stained with rust and none of the faucets working. A bucket of water stands by the toilet, and she washes her hands briefly in that, then dries them on my shirt. "Wash your face," she says. "You look like you've been having too much fun for an interrogation."

I splash water on my face, and then wipe myself dry with with my shirt, which is looking increasingly appropriate for a Calabite at this rate. "We wouldn't want that."

"No," Regan says, sounding terribly amused with her own comments. "We wouldn't. Especially as I need to go have a long talk with my second about the angel he's locked in the basement. Do you think he's been conducting the same sort of interrogation?"

From the way he looked at her--oh, I would not put it past that Impudite. "No idea," I say, as if I don't particularly care. "What do you want me to do now?"

"Come here," she says, and I take a step forward to where she's indicating.

Regan slaps me across the face so hard I can hear a tooth crack.

"There," she says. "You look more interrogated now." She gives me one last kiss, tongue swiping across the corner of my mouth where fresh blood is running towards the scab from her first bite. "Follow along and keep your mouth shut. You get into trouble when you talk too much."


	17. An Interlude, In Which Everyone Makes Compromises

Jack sat on the trunks and waited for Regan to finish upstairs. He had his arguments laid out, phrased properly to work around delicate Balseraph sensitivities and pride, and ready to deploy.

He had opinions on how this entire operation should have been conducted, as well, but those arguments had already been brought up and knocked down. So be it. It hadn't taken him long to learn that visible loyalty to one's immediate superior was appreciated, and seldom a drawback, as massive failure would usually be blamed on the commanding officer anyway. He might as well play the role of loyal second in command to the Balseraph for as long as her career trajectory continued upward, and thus have a noisy, arrogant shield for any blame when her plans failed.

It was surprising, really, that those plans didn't fail more often.

She strode down the stairs with the same sneer and straight back that she wore to every part of a mission, and flicked a glance around the room. "The men?" There was the stray demon Kai had picked up, skulking along in her wake. Bruised and battered, which was some relief. He'd almost worried that Regan was taken with the thing.

"I sent the Shedite into town to ditch a tracker. That should keep Lightning stalled for a while longer. Not forever." And did he approve of discussing these things in front of a third, unknown party? No. But nobody asked _him_.

"So you're telling me," she said, "that the prisoner you have locked in the basement is from Lightning." She arched an eyebrow. "Unless you've fixed that problem already?"

"Killing her would be a problem," Jack said. "I know this one. She plays canary in the coal mine for that Word. Contractor from Creation, so they don't feel very obliged to give her backup. They throw her at problems they're not sure about, and if she hits Trauma, then they know to send in a strike team. I have her tranqed and locked down. She won't be a problem."

"If you have the tracker moving," Regan said, "then they'll send the strike team to that location." She shooed him off the trunks with a dismissive wave, and oh, he moved on as if he cared what she wanted. It was only wise to do what she wanted promptly. It gave him more room to argue when it mattered. "What do we need a live angel for?"

"Another hostage, if it comes to that," he said. "Information, if I can pry it out of her. The mortal doesn't know enough to be any damn use."

Regan pulled the briefcase up to the top of the trunks where he'd been sitting--no matter that there was plenty of other space to work with--and unlocked it. "Then get working on the angel," she said, "and make it tell us how this works." She slid the open case over to the Magpie lurking at her side. "Meanwhile, see if you can figure this out."

"I'm not exactly a scientist," said the Magpie, but she begin gingerly poking through the papers inside the case. "And I probably shouldn't touch these hard drives at all. Did you steal any complete systems?"

"No," Regan said. "Too much chance of Kyriotates coming along for the ride. You've done enough demolition wiring in your life to read a technical diagram, I'm sure."

"I'll...see what I can do," the Magpie said, and pulled herself up to sit on the trunks, pulling papers out in chunks to lay out around her. "No promises."

Jack considered the pattern of bruises on the demon's throat, and the broken skin on her face. The imprint of teeth at her throat. "We should discuss plans," he said to Regan, and looked pointedly at the Magpie.

"Don't go anywhere," Regan said to the demon on the trunks, who nodded without looking up. She strode back upstairs, leaving Jack to follow. With this stranger sifting through the data they'd spent so much effort getting, and not so much as a guard set on her.

"If you try to run," Jack began, and the Magpie looked over her shoulder at him with a toothy smile.

"Yes, yes," she said. "Horrible things happen to me. Regan already explained. Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

Which he did not believe for an instant, but they did not call superior officers "commanders" because the officers made suggestions. And all he could do was follow Regan upstairs.

The Balseraph walked them down to the end of the hallway, and waited there. Which meant she didn't intend to get too violent yet, and that was good, because he did not have the _time_ to deal with one of her power plays. "Plans," she said dryly. "Explain, Jack, because I was under the impression we already had a plan."

"This is falling apart," he said. Blunter than she'd like, but there it was. "We should pack everything up and run for a Tether. Drop the tech and notes on someone there and call it a success. Lightning's tracked us this far, and the rest of them _will_ show up to take this back. We do not have the personnel or equipment to fight off one of their raids."

"We took out the lab without breaking stride," Regan said. "What has you so worried now?"

"The fact that those fuckers don't care about noise if it can get them revenge," Jack said. "The lab was easy because they were being _quiet_. Now that they don't have to worry about Roles or their own investment, they are bringing the entirely literal wrath of God after us. We can haul everything we've found to someone higher up, hand it over, and still call this a win. If a strike team catches us, we lose."

"That angel in the basement is your old friend, isn't she," Regan said. "The one you're still hung up about. Is that why you want to run? We are the War, Jack. We don't flee from hypothetical danger that might be challenging to deal with."

"But we know enough to not start a fight we can't win." Jack swallowed a wealth of less useful responses. Working for the War had been a fast, sharp lesson in learning to hold his tongue. "Our tech is dead, one of the Sparky Soldiers is dead, and if the Shedite bounces out of the remaining monkey again on his next try, that's _days_ before we get anything out of him. How long do you really think we can hold out here?"

"Long enough," Regan said. "I am not dropping unknown tech into someone else's hands and letting them take all the credit for it. We are not _Theft_." She offered him a thin, cold smile that showed teeth. "Tell me, do you just want to run away so that you can let your old friend live?"

"No," he said, "I was planning on bringing her with us. We can give her to the Game, and pull in some credit there. _They_ want to see her, and that's one more way to count this as a win."

"A live angel is a liability," Regan said.

"A live Thief is a liability," Jack said, "and yet somehow we seem to have one pawing through our data downstairs. Do you want to explain that part to me? Because all I'm seeing is that you're making decisions with your dick instead of your brain. Please, Regan, tell me that's _not_ your old boyfriend that got us into that stupid mess with the kid."

"He had nothing to do with that," Regan said, which meant _yes_. "Flowers called Trade down on us, and he never showed. It would have worked fine if he'd done what he should've. And right now that Thief is the closest we have to a cooperative scientist in this building."

"Munitions is not science!" Jack took a deep breath before he could start shouting. Shouting never helped. It only made Regan more smug and arch and impossible to deal with. "Fine. If she can read the data, then...we probably have a day or two before Lightning realizes their canary's gone missing. We keep everyone locked down, and a close watch on the perimeter."

"Exactly like I told you we would," Regan said. "If you find all of this too hard on your delicate nerves, you can drag your pet Ofanite a few towns away and kill her there. See if that keeps Lightning distracted for a while."

And that was the deal, wasn't it. You keep yours and I keep mine, and we both pretend we're being logical about this. Jack smiled back at her. "Your pet Calabite will work out what that equipment does?"

"I expect so," Regan said, and shrugged loosely. "She'll make herself useful. Unlike yours. Unless you think you can make a Calabite out of it before we have to move? Because I am not taking an angel away from here with me, Jack. If you want to get laid, take half an hour of break and do that now."

"Believe me," he said, "we want to keep her. You have no idea how much the Game would give for her."

She waved that argument off. "Go see if the monkey's awake yet, and call the Shedite back. I want as many eyes as possible on the tech. If Lightning's coming, we need to know what we're dealing with."

"And I don't want the Thief unsupervised," he said. "Look at the Word. Theft. Does that not suggest a _problem_ with this setup to you?"

Regan grabbed his collar. Ah. So that was a step too far. Useful to know. "Try to remember," she said, "the chain of command." She stalked down the hallway to the stairs, and he hurried to follow, before she could do something unfortunate. More unfortunate. Before she got him killed again.


	18. In Which I Am Not Entirely Clear On My Short-Term Goals

When Regan stalks back down the stairs, I'm still in the middle of trying to sort the haphazard collection of papers they wedged into that briefcase. Some of this is clearly sensitive technical data, and some of it is random office detritus that happened to be nearby when someone went grabbing. This is why other Words should hire Theft instead of trying to do these things themselves. It's a sloppy job, and that makes everything harder for me.

"This would be easier if you could tell me what any of this is _supposed_ to explain," I say, and pretend I don't notice the way the Impudite behind her is looking at me. I'm not sure yet what he has against me personally, but that is a distinctly personal level of hatred that I'm picking up from him. Doesn't matter, so long as Regan's in charge and doesn't put the two of us alone in a room again.

"Working on that," Regan says, and snaps her fingers, not slowing as she stalks right past me. I slide off the trunks and follow, tucking one particularly interesting sheet of paper into my pocket on the way. I will get out of this with something to show for my time, if I get out of this at all.

Her Impudite waits for me to move, and follows directly behind me, so close he steps on the backs of my shoes twice. Yes, yes, I get the picture, Taker. You don't much like me and you trust me even less. The feeling is mutual.

Can't say I'm entirely pleased that we're going on a little expedition down into the basement.

Kai's lying on her side, bloodied hands bound behind her with wire. Someone needs to introduce the War to the concept of handcuffs. Her eyes are closed, and she doesn't react as we walk past.

"Get the human," Regan says, but not to me, and the Impudite goes to haul that poor bastard up from the mattress. "How awake is he?"

"Not very," says the Impudite. "Heading towards it, maybe. In another half hour--"

"--the Shedite should be back to try again," Regan says. "But we might get something out of him now. Take him upstairs and get some _answers_ , Jack."

The way the muscles around the Impudite's jaw move when he carefully does not respond, and drags the human upstairs, say more than any audible response could've. That's something for me to work with, if I need to make everything here fall apart. Which I do. No matter how attractive the idea is, I can't _actually_ help Regan. Much. I have a job to do.

I can claim I tried and failed, especially if I still pin my presence on Technology trying to cross the War. But that would be...a bad idea. Maybe. How good is the Marquis at figuring out what I'm lying about, anyway? The only person I'm likely to speak only truth to in debriefings is my Prince, and even there I don't exactly tell the _complete_ truth.

Regan rolls her eyes when the basement door slams, and puts a hand to the back of my neck. "Keep an eye on the angel," she says. "Why did you even bring her here?"

"Someone to stand behind if the bullets came my way," I say, because Regan will always believe a claim of cowardice on my part. No matter that I've been right there beside her in tackling a pack of Malakim. I'm willing to run from a fight, so I'm always and ever a coward in her mind. "What's his deal?"

"He's nervous about Lightning raids, and thus fussing over every tiny detail." She prods the Ofanite with a boot. "Keep an eye on this one. If she wakes up, see if you can get any useful information out of her. She's with Lightning, so she must know something about this project."

"Are we likely to end up with a strike team eating our faces?" I say, with proper care to pronoun choice in that sentence. "And do you have anything for me to work with in keeping an angry Ofanite confined beyond my charm and wit?"

"Don't you start worrying too," Regan says. "We have plenty of time." And that sounds nothing at all like _No, there is no strike team heading our way._ "If she causes too much trouble, tell her that we'll damage that human she wants if she damages anything we want to keep. Including you."

"Great," I say. "Have fun with the interrogation. Are you leaving me down here just to annoy your second in command?"

"Not entirely," she says. Her sharp smiles are the best. Regan is always at her best when she's finding a way to hurt someone who isn't me. "Have fun. Try not to break anything important; apparently we need to keep that angel alive a while longer."

I smile back at her, just as sharp and twice as dangerous. Right up until the basement door closes again, and I'm alone with the angel that--let's be honest, I dragged into this mess. She might've made an even worse assault without me, but I don't think the Impudite would've spotted her in that coffee shop if Zhune and I hadn't interrupted her first round of surveillance.

Which does not make it my responsibility to get her out of here. That's beyond anything I promised.

Nor is it my job to help Regan. All I'm supposed to do is undermine all of this and run off with what I can. That's it. Anything else is...extracurricular, and the sort of interference with work that Zhune gets testy about if he catches me doing it.

Of course, he's not here to see me do anything, either. All he can do is wait on the outside for an opportunity. He's good at taking advantage of those, so long as he leaves the fiddly setup to me.

I sit down on the ground behind the Ofanite, and take a look at her hands. Thumbs and wrists and elbows all wired together, and she tried to fight it at some point, because her hands are streaked with blood. "Are you actually awake?"

She makes a small, angry noise.

"Okay, well. You heard what the nice Balseraph said. Don't try to bolt, or they'll take it out on your Soldier." I get another iteration of that angry sound. "Look, it's not _my_ fault this went south. If you do find a chance to grab the human and run, you're welcome to it. He was never on my shopping list in the first place." I lean back to grab her jacket from where it's crumpled on the floor, and drag that over to check the pockets. Nothing inside. The Impudite must've already taken care of that part. "Look on the bright side. You're just shot up with drugs, not missing any limbs. Regan can get vicious, given an opportunity. So try not to give one to her."

"Hate drugs," the Ofanite mutters against the floor. "So _slow_."

"They're not so bad," I say. "At least you're not in Trauma, either." I pull the drawstring out of the hem of my hoodie, and consider its length. Probably not enough for a good knot. There's another drawstring in the hood, so I pull that out in turn, and knot the two of them together. "I once got to tranq an entire Judgment triad. Did not kill a one of them. And did anyone thank me for that? No. You try to do something considerate for people, and they never appreciate it."

"Doubt they would," she says. "Still hostile."

"Hey. I didn't start it." I loop the cord around her wrists, and tie the two of them together. Not half as secure as handcuffs or a zip-tie, but I know my way around knots. And she's not breaking through a paper bag in her current state. "They were the ones who tracked me down, knocked me silly with Songs, and tried to carry me away. Those bastards had it coming. They would've killed me."

"No," she says. "Not Judgment."

"Believe me," I say, securing the final knot, "they've tried before."

She sighs against the floor. "Not that set. Tracked you? Carried you? Not an execution triad. Retrieval. Wanted to talk." Her voice turns wry. "Might not've liked the talk. Still."

I begin picking the wire loose around her thumbs. "I suppose it doesn't matter at this point, since they didn't get away with it." Her fingers twitch as a bend of wire cuts in against the ball of her thumb. "Hold still, or this will hurt more. What is up with you and that Impudite, anyway?"

"An old friend," she says.

"Yeah, I gathered that much. My ex-girlfriend is running this show, so I guess it's reunion week all around." My hands will be as bloody as hers by the time I get this wire off, though at least this set of blood won't be mine. "How do you know someone in the War, anyway?"

"Wind." She coughs out a sad laugh. "Supposed to be _Wind_. Jack. My oldest friend. I knew him before I knew my own Archangel. I don't. Understand. He's still my friend and he's _here_."

"Damned if I know either." I get her thumbs free, only stabbing myself once in the process, and then pulling the wire away from her wrists is trivial. "I couldn't work for the War, and I'm a fucking demon. And don't ask me to explain Falling to you, either, because that doesn't make any more sense to me. Changing your whole nature to go pal around with the enemy. I don't know why anyone ever swaps sides, unless they're too young to know who they are yet."

"Because they want something more than themselves," she says, her words slow to compensate for not being terribly awake yet. "Or in the other direction. Because they want only what they want for themselves. More than they want what they have to leave behind. Easier for Renegades and Outcasts, who already left so much."

"The other side didn't seem very appealing when I was a Renegade, either." I sit back on my heels, and toss the bloody wire into a dark corner.

"Maybe you didn't get the right offer," she says. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." I wipe my hands off on my shirt, because why give up on such an established trend of destroying my own clothing? "Seriously, don't mention it. Maybe no one will notice."

She squirms about on the floor. Trying to roll onto her back, I think, which is, as I know from painful experience, not going to make those hands any happier. I get to my feet, and drag her back to a wall where I can prop her up to sitting and she doesn't have to put any weight on her hands.

"Why?" she asks. Her eyes can't even focus on me. What a sad little angel she is right now, and how likely she is yet to kill everyone here if she can manage it.

"Why what?" I sit down across from her, leaning back on my hands. Maybe this will look like an interrogation if Regan bursts back in. I always did take the good cop role when we had to do this sort of thing.

I'm not even sure whether or not I'm doing that right now.

"Taking off the wire," she says, and blinks rapidly. Trying to focus, I think. "You know. I can get out of this."

"I'll pretend you didn't say that." I look up at the ceiling, which is covered in cracks and water stains. "Maybe I just don't like seeing people tied up. You know Theft. Always keep moving."

"Theft," she says, "and not Freedom." The corner of her mouth twists up. "Do you fake being a Lilim because you wanted to get that choice?"

"I'd hoped to pull that off a while longer," I say. "What tipped you off?"

"Told you. My boyfriend was one. You don't look at people's eyes the right way."

"It doesn't matter," I say. "Most people don't get any choice in what they are, or who they serve, and I don't think even Lilim have as much of a choice as they like to pretend."

"There are plenty of choices we don't get," she says, and shuts her eyes, head propped against the wall. I suspect she'd fall over again if the wall weren't there. "Makes our actual choices more important. The real currency in life. What we decide to do."

"And half the time," I say, "we decide to do something, and fail anyway, so what does it matter? Trying is its own reward?"

"No," she says. "We try because we want to succeed. Keep trying because there's a chance. Any chance." She draws in a shaky breath. "I keep asking him to come back, because he might say yes. Some day. Once is all it takes."

"Don't you think he already made the choice? Fallen, Kai. Not Hellborn." I prop my chin on my knees, and watch her shiver. "That was a choice."

"It's never too late," she says.

"You are a wild optimist, Kai. Which must be an angelic thing, because I don't see it in demons a lot." I get up and bring her the jacket, which I then have to drape over her shoulders myself. I can't get it back on her without untying her wrists, and that would be harder to explain to Regan. "You realize that there's a good chance neither of us will live through this."

"Might not," she says.

"If you tell me what the project was about," I say, settling down across from her again, "that gives me a better chance of getting through this. Since they're trying to put together that information upstairs. But if you give up all the information you have, Regan's more likely to decide to kill you, no matter what your friend wants. And he wants to kill me, possibly because I got you into trouble."

She cracks her eyes open at me again. "Thus?"

"Thus you should tell me what the project is," I say, "and then pretend you didn't. I get to look clever for figuring it out, you retain your utility because you still might have more information they need, and we all try to stay alive until..."

I don't know what until.

"You," she says carefully, "are surprisingly considerate. For a demon. If I weren't this fuzzy in the head? Might be able to tell better. If you're faking that or not."

"Probably I'm faking it," I say. "Demon, you know. Using a standard interrogation tactic. Setting up the kinder, gentler option for you to talk to interspersed with Regan's threats. What other reason could I have for being nice?"

"Don't know," she says. "Maybe you don't like hurting people."

"Can't say that I go out of my way for it. Unless they harass me first." The drugs must be wearing off; celestials tend to have metabolisms that'd put a human athlete's to shame. I wonder how long she'll able to fake otherwise once she's able to move properly again, and what'll happen once she bolts. She's still outnumbered and trying to run off with a human who might be getting a Shedite installed right now.

She's an Ofanite. She can't fake stillness for long, not without picking up dissonance, no matter how much she wants to. Thank god I don't have that sort of limitation.

"Hey, Kai?"

She makes an interrogative noise.

"How long do you think we have until Lightning realizes you aren't checking in, and sends in a strike team to your last known location?"

"Couldn't really say."

"Is that 'couldn't' in the sense of 'unable' or in the sense of 'won't'?"

"Bit of each."

"Okay, that's fair." I look up at the ceiling some more, and try to figure out what I want. (Regan's hands on my body. My partner's respect and affection. The freedom to run away from all of this. A rare, perfect smile from a Seraph I should know better than to talk to. One friend I can count on who's never once hit me, and maybe I'd have one or two of those if I didn't keep sending them away.) "When Lightning inevitably shows up to murder everyone left standing, see if you can put in a nice word for me before I'm added to the murder list, and I won't lend any significant help to the War in fighting back against them. Deal?"

"When Lightning shows up," Kai says, "there may be a lot of murder before I get to say anything." She coughs out another laugh, somewhat more amused than the last one. "Especially if my boyfriend comes along. He takes this kind of thing personally."

"Still. You could try."

"Try to keep my Soldier alive," she says. "Lightning strike team can take care of itself. He needs help. Do that, I'll try to help you."

"Deal," I say.

We sit there in the basement for a while. There are footsteps overhead now and again, and I'm not always sure if the angel's even awake. Trying to sleep the drug off, maybe, and let her system run through it.

"Can you tell me," I say, when there are enough footsteps above that I'm sure the Shedite has come back, "what the project's about? Just a hint. Like hell am I ever going to parse Lightning's data on my own."

Kai cracks an eye open to squint at me. "You should leave that tech alone," she says. "You'd be better off running while you can."

"It's a bit late for that, Kai."

She sighs, and closes her eyes again. "Summoning," she says. "Tell them you got that out of me. Watch out for that human."

Five minutes later, one of Regan's men shows up to insist I come upstairs, and I don't know which one he is, Soldier or demon or otherwise. We leave the angel in the basement where surely she can't get up to any trouble--I would not believe that--and I tromp upstairs to find my not-girlfriend having a staredown with Jack. For what I suspect is not the first, second, or even third time today.

"If we start cutting pieces off of him," Jack says tightly, and the subject of their discussion appears to be the increasingly battered Soldier huddled on the floor between them, "we lose our leverage. And our hostage against incoming hostiles."

"If he won't take a Shedite," Regan says, "and he won't tell us what this is, I don't see what damn use it is to keep him around." She waves me forward, and I stop a half step behind her, like I'm a dog at heel. "He can lose a few fingers without dying."

"Maybe," says the Impudite, "and maybe not, since apparently Lightning doesn't think its Soldiers need any Corporeal Forces. He'll almost certainly pass out again."

"It's for summoning," I say, and shrug at the two stares suddenly turned on me. "Not a lot to go on, but I found out that much. And much as I hate to say it, he's right. We need to keep the human alive and fairly undamaged. The angel will not get chatty at us without that to hold over her head, and if he shows up downstairs with new parts missing, the threat to do that again doesn't hold water. Because clearly we'll cut pieces off regardless."

"What did you do?" Jack demands.

"I talked," I say, with a sweet smile for him. "Nicely. Sometimes that _works_. People drop information when they're not very coherent and think you're friendly, and when they don't know what you know or don't already."

"Put the human away," Regan says to Jack, and turns her attention back to me. Because now that mortal is irrelevant to her interests, and might as well not exist. "You can put this together?"

"No promises," I say, and reach for a stack of papers. "But I'll see what I can do."


	19. In Which I Avoid Death More Narrowly Than I Prefer

It's an hour to sunset and I have a headache from staring at peculiar technical documentation in bad lighting. Some of this is handwritten. Lightning does not appear to make its hiring decisions based on quality of penmanship. I am developing a profound resentment towards whoever was responsible for this project in the first place. They couldn't have a nice user manual propped up against the equipment along with the handy packing crates? 

That's the problem with so many celestials out there. No damn consideration for the people who mean to rob them.

Disturbance crackles through the air, and I look up. A moment later, so does Regan, who has been doing knife-sharpening in a corner for the last several minutes. "Heard that?" she asks me, which is her way of not admitting she's not sure what caused it.

"Sounded like someone dying," I say. "Count your mortals?"

Jack comes pounding upstairs, and slams the basement door behind him. "Where's--"

"On patrol and upstairs, respectively," Regan says. "Shake that slacker awake and send him out." She strides for the front door, but she checks the screens for the cheap security system they have wired up before walking through. Smart.

The Impudite runs upstairs, and returns a minute later with a sleep-groggy Hellsworn who's trying to pull a jacket on and check his ammo reserves at the same time. "Out towards the gym," Jack says, and pushes the man out the door more gently than I would've expected. "Catch up and stay close. Keep your head down."

I would've expected the Impudite to follow, but apparently he's not in favor of having every single Warrior outside of the house, leaving the insides to two people from Lightning and one from Theft. Probably a good call on his part, if inconvenient to me. I think I could pull all three of us out of here with five minutes unobserved and knowing what direction the War's sniffing in. Assuming he hasn't shot Kai up with another tranq in the last few hours, which is...okay, unlikely. Doesn't matter. He's not giving me the opportunity.

"I can't believe," he says to me, leaning back against the door, "that you're still alive in all of this. What good are you?"

"I'm most of the way to figuring out how to put this thing together," I say, "and I'm told I'm abso-fucking-lutely adorable." I bare my teeth at him in what is not a grin. "Back off and let me concentrate, would you?"

He takes out a pistol to check whatever it is one checks on those things. Never liked guns, myself. Too prone to catastrophic failure after a few hits of resonance. "And you'll go running the instant I take my eyes off you. Won't you."

"Given what Regan would do to me if I tried, I wasn't really planning on it." I tuck another folded sheet of paper into my back pocket. This one has my notes on it, though I don't know if I've picked out enough to make the Marquis happy yet. "Don't you have an incoming strike team to deal with or something?"

"That's not Lightning," Jack says. "They'd be louder. And they'd have reached the house by now." He pulls the safety back on his gun, and raises it casually to point towards me. "Who else is out there, Thief?"

"Wouldn't know," I say. "I'm pretty sure Regan will be annoyed at you if you kill me while she's out."

"If I shoot you while you try to run for it," he says, "she'll be annoyed, but she'll understand."

Chances of being shot in the next five minutes: much higher than I would like. Hell. This would be a terrible time to be murdered, right when Zhune's probably thinning the ranks to give me a better chance at an out. I don't know what I'd do without my partner and his casual approach to killing things that get in his way.

He is looking for any excuse to kill me, and he will make one up if need be. Which is something of a problem. But if he's anything like most demons I know, he's not hard to distract if offered better entertainment. Like, oh, getting more intimately hostile. I let my sigh remain entirely internal. This is why I hate dealing with the War. So many of their strategies come down to violence even when there's a better way.

"Kai might be annoyed too," I say, and make a show of focusing on the papers in front of me. Why does Lightning have a receipt for overnight aquatic delivery, anyway? That can't have anything to do with this project. I'm not even sure what it means. Some sort of aquarium thing. There's a terse memo clipped to it about future personal requests from N., whoever that is, coming out of a different account. "She seems like a nice kid. Bit idealistic, but that's angels for you."

"And why should she care if I kill a demon?" Jack asks--no, that's more of a demand, really, and he shifts his aim towards my legs. More interested in hurting me than killing me, now that he knows I have something to say that he might want to hear. "She does that herself all the time."

This idiot doesn't even know enough to deny that he cares what she thinks. Talk about hitting a nerve. If Regan were smart enough to work with that, she could run him around in circles, but I bet she's not using it for anything more than the most obvious blunt pressure. She really does need a clever second in command to work at her best, and I'm not sure this Impudite is good enough for that.

"She promised not to hurt me," I say, and shrug. "Same as I offered for her. And I've kept my side of the deal, haven't I? I got her into this place, and it's not my fault you jumped her. But I could be wrong about her caring. Plenty of angels are willing to make promises and then get out of it on a technicality. If you shoot me, it's not her problem."

He's hesitating, but not enough. Still too much calculation in his eyes. Time for me to take another tack.

"The hilarious thing," I say, with a cutting smile I don't get to bring out often, "is that she still thinks you're her _friend_. How does that even work? Because I would think--"

He pulls me off the trunks, and slams me down onto the ground. My back to the floor, his knee on my chest, and his gun shoved inside my mouth. "You should think very hard," he says, eyes bright, "about what you intend to say next. Understood?"

I nod fractionally, the barrel of the gun clicking against my teeth. Uncomfortable. Tastes like oil. Might yet get me killed. But a perfect location for focusing a trickle of my resonance inside that weapon. If he tries to shoot me from this close--I am going to be very unhappy. From several feet away, well, I think he'll be the one who doesn't like the results then. He can't know Calabim that well.

He draws the gun out of my mouth, and slides it down to press against my shoulder. Probably not lethal, but oh that will _hurt_ if he tries to shoot me there, unless what I've done to the gun makes it simply non-functional instead of explosive. "What did you talk about down in the basement, Thief? And before you try to lie to me, recall that I know what she's like."

"Then you know what the conversation was like," I say, and flick my tongue over the scab at the corner of my mouth. Torn open again. I am so tired of tasting blood; it's like being back in the War again. When I get out of this, I'm demanding enough beer to knock me unconscious, and Zhune can do whatever he likes with the results. "She tries to sell me on redemption, I politely decline, we chat a bit about how much it sucks to have the War breathing down our necks when we're just trying to get our respective jobs done. We didn't talk about you _much_ , Jack. I get the impression it's a sore topic."

"No," he says, "I don't think that's all there was to it. What did you do to her?"

"I talked," I say patiently. "Nicely. Because Regan isn't very good at playing nice, and apparently you weren't up to doing the job either." I reach a hand up, and tap the side of his gun with a finger. "Also, I am a Calabite, and I am pretty fucking good at being one. If I really thought you meant to shoot me I'd just break this. So can you get off my chest and stop posturing? This is uncomfortable, and I have a job to do."

"I think you're leading her on," he says. He rocks back to his feet, and stands over me watching while I crawl back to my own. Somehow, given the assignment, I'd expected to end up with more bullet holes and fewer bruises than the way things are turning out. "You can draw out being _almost_ ready for days, can't you? Because you are such a good liar."

"You're confusing me with my ex." I sit on the edge of the stack, which almost puts me eye to eye with him. "I'm not the expert anyone here wants or needs, but I'm apparently the expert you assholes deserve. And it sounds like you're running short on warm bodies to stand between you and the incoming strike force, at that. So maybe you shouldn't be so quick to lose one more."

"You know who killed someone out there," he says. "Don't you."

"Of course not," I say smoothly, as he will never believe. "Besides, does it matter? Lightning will follow your Ofanite in, and kill all of us. We're just rearranging deck chairs while the ship sinks."

He taps the side of my face with his gun, which is unfortunately still a heavy, blunt club even if it doesn't shoot so well anymore, and with the way Regan hit me--yes, that hurts. I let him have the satisfaction of seeing me wince. If he wants to play, then I'll still be alive when Regan gets back. "You don't have an ETA for them either."

"No," I say, "but Kai called in the 'Hello I am making a deal with a demon' thing before she agreed to run this with me. Don't you think they'll be paying _close attention_ to how often she checks back in? Even more so than usual? And she knew exactly the place we meant to hit. Now, maybe she's stupid enough to not send that info back to her supervisor before we set out, but I get the impression she's been doing this kind of thing for a while."

"And you didn't mention this to Regan, why?"

"Because she didn't want to hear it, so she wasn't going to hear it." I shrug, and even _that_ hurts by this point. So tired of being shoved around. I'd drop a ceiling on this Impudite if I thought I could get away with it. But, no, I am not confident enough in my ability to disable him to give it a real try. "I expect we'll all die here. Maybe I can run when the shooting starts, but Regan probably won't let me. It won't be the first time she got me killed. So unless you have a bright idea for convincing her to pack up and leave before Lightning arrives..." I spread my hands. "I am, as you keep pointing out, with Theft. Not the War. Firefights are not my fucking job. But it looks like I'm stuck with this one. Look on the bright side. Kai's probably the only one who'll live it through it, unless they decide to go straight to an air raid."

"If we pack up and go," Jack says, and now it looks like he's doing some serious thinking, which might not be for the best, "any allies you have can hit us more easily. Stay here, and we're an easy target for Lightning."

"Gosh," I say. "Tough call, isn't it?" I duck out of the way of his next blow, roll across the trunks and off, to my feet on the far side. There. Come walk around that if you want to hit me again. "You know what's funny, Jack? The last time I had a conversation much like this, it was with a Malakite. Maybe when you got tired of being a Mercurian, you should've found a different direction to shift."

He does try to shoot me, and I guess all I did was make that gun stop working, because it doesn't explode in his hand. Just as well. Would've been hard to explain that one to Regan.

But it turns out he's actually pretty good at lunging across the entire stack of trunks to grab me by the throat and knock me down to the floor again. One second thought, maybe I should've stopped while I was ahead, because I am pretty sure he can kill me without needing any firearms.

Environmental variables for me to mess with: not many. And I'm better at that when I'm on my feet and moving with a space to scope out, not on my back with an Impudite's hands wrapped around my throat. (It's almost like Regan's back, that, but he's not my type, and I don't think he's interested.) I press my palms against the floor beneath me, and shove every bit of _can't run away_ I've got boiling inside of me out through my Discord and into those floorboards.

I think that might've taken me two tries if this house weren't in such bad shape already and oh _fuck_ that hurt. Lying on the ground in the basement, the Impudite still on top of me but not holding onto me anymore because I think he was a little surprised by that move, and, right, step two. I would like to find a step two to this plan, after step one. (If a situation looks unwinnable, throw in complications until the sheer chaos suggests a solution. It works sometimes as a first step.)

"I think I'll go ahead and kill you," Jack says conversationally, "and let Regan complain. After all, you're clearly trying to escape."

I sort of miss the days when I got to actually beat people up. That's a lot easier to do when dealing mostly with humans, and somehow it never seems to work when I have to tangle with other celestials.

"Stop it, Jack," Kai says, and the Impudite pauses with a fist raised. "Would you just _stop_?"

She sounds horribly muzzy, and sits on the edge of the mattress by the human, hands still bound behind her back. (Or making a good imitation of it.) She must've been hit with another tranq over the last few hours, because she doesn't even stand up, and has to settle for a wavering glare in our direction.

"If you'd like," Jack says, and rolls to his feet. He puts a foot on my chest before I can do the same, and keeps it there while he straightens his clothes out. The bastard barely looks bruised by that fall. (But then, he had me to land on. Ow.) "Though I don't see why you'd care. Usually killing demons was your job." He puts more of his weight onto my chest. "Here, tell you what. If you want all the fun, I'll set you free long enough to do the job. You can probably manage that if I hold her down, right?"

"I don't want to kill anyone in this room," Kai says, her words oddly spaced through whatever haze the drugs have her in, "though you are nearly convincing me otherwise. Who died?"

"You heard that?" Jack slides his boot up to my throat when I twitch. "One of ours, I expect. Tell me, Kai, when you hooked up with this one, did she come alone or as part of a set? Because we may have some sort of Magpie infestation out there."

"Whoever is out there," Kai says wearily, "I would rather you not meet them. Find an excuse. Go into town. Get out of here. Please, Jack."

"I'm not going anywhere without you," he says, like it's the sweetest thing in the world, and Kai looks like she might well burst into tears.

Whatever window is left for getting out of here before Lightning arrives, I think there's not much of it. And I cannot possibly talk Regan into leaving. Jack might be able to, but I know how she works, he'd have to give something up. And the one thing Regan wants him to let go of right now, he never will. This would be hilarious if I weren't caught in the middle.

Footsteps upstairs make us all pause and look. "Jack!" Regan shouts, and that is not the sound of someone in the middle of combat, but neither is that a happy voice. "Get over here."

"Right there," Jack calls back, and takes his boot off me, turning it into a kick. "Get up, Thief."

It is some kind of infernal miracle that I can still walk. But I can, and stagger up the stairs in front of the Impudite. If I hadn't already broken his gun, I'd have a bullet in my back right now.

Regan stands near the front door, two men at her side looking terrified and morose respectively. I bet I can pick the Djinn out of that lineup. "We're down another Soldier," she says. "This is no time to play games."

"We should move out," Jack says, and I suspect he is not happy at all to be saying it in front of me. "Shove everything in the vans and get out of here. We can drop any trail on the way to a Tether."

"Not yet," Regan says.

He needs to make a concession. And he damn well knows it. "She can study up on the papers on the road," he says, jerking a thumb towards me. "If she figures out anything useful, we can stop and implement it. Anywhere along the way."

"I am not testing unknown Lightning tech at a random rest stop," Regan says. Her lips press together, and if these two War flunkies weren't listening, I expect she'd be saying a lot more about what she thinks of the state the two of us are in. "We are not moving until we have a concrete description to hand over when we arrive."

Oh. Well. When she puts it that way.

"I think," I say, and do my best to look confident through the current pain, "that I can help you there."

"Like hell you can," Jack says.

"Explain it? No. Put the pieces in the right places and see what happens when I hit the switch to turn it on? Maybe." I pull out one of the papers I've been stashing in pockets, and unfold it. "Look at this sketch. That's not a tech diagram, that's someone working out how to lay this out inside a space. And we'll need more space than this room."

Regan studies me intently, and I wonder what she thinks of me now. I should not wonder. I don't want to know. "Are you sure you can make this work?"

Not in the slightest. "Enough to figure out what it's supposed to do, yes. Probably. And if it does work, we can pack up and get out of here. Right?"

"Right," she says, and turns to the two men waiting for her commands. "Move the equipment to the gym. Stick _together_ and keep sharp. Call out if you see so much as a squirrel eyeing you funny, because if we have a Kyrio out there, I want it shot."

"I'll get the prisoners," Jack says. Which probably means I'm not being counted as one anymore, since he turns towards the basement door.

"Leave them," Regan says. "They're not relevant." She pauses, and then flicks on a smile. "On second thought, leave the human alone. We don't need more disturbance. Kill the angel. If she hits Trauma now, they'll run towards that tracker."

"Your pet Calabite," Jack says softly, "seems to have broken my gun."

Regan pulls another from inside her coat, and tosses it to him. "Get to it," she says, and snaps her fingers at me. "Pull together the data, Leo, and let's get moving. No time to waste."

And what do we all do? What she says, of course.


	20. An Interlude, In Which Nothing Which Happens Should Come As A Surprise

Jack shut the basement door behind him, and walked down the stairs. He took his time about it. Moving the trunks over to the gym would take at least a dozen trips, Djinn and Shedite edgy and slow the whole way. Especially the Shedite, with its new dissonance and awareness of potential mortality.

Regan, two nervous little demons--the Soldier couldn't even count as a third to that set, with the Shedite in his head--and him, the team to stand up against incoming Lightning. It was ludicrous. They could do some damage on the way out, and what good was that? _Did not retreat_ stamped across the conclusion of a failed mission.

Or maybe that shifty Calabite would put the tech together and turn it on. Maybe Regan would finally let them move, ditch it somewhere with better security, and call it a done deal. Wouldn't that be nice.

And short of shooting his commander in the back when no one was looking, he could not see any way to bring Kai out of this with him at the end.

She was still sitting beside the human. It wasn't a natural posture for her, huddling like that. And she barely looked up at his approach.

But then, there was still a hole in the ceiling. She probably heard everything. 

Jack waited for the sounds above to indicate that everyone was outside. Then he sat down beside her, and checked on her hands. Bloody and raw, which he hadn't wanted--and not tied as he'd left them. A thin white cord lashed her wrists together, spotted brown from her blood.

There was only one person he could have done that, and he didn't know what to think about it. So he didn't. Set it aside and moved right on. "It looks like this is where we split up again," he said. "Sorry about that."

She leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder. "Pretty sure I can't stop you from shooting me," she said.

"Like I'd do that." Jack drew his gun out, and shot the wall. The human on the mattress flinched at the sound, but who cared about him? As Regan had said, irrelevant now. "There. Bang. You're dead. Sit tight for a while and someone's bound to come pick you up eventually. Even Lightning won't abandon you forever."

"And what if someone comes downstairs to check?" she asked quietly.

"No one will. Checking would imply that Regan thought someone would disobey an order she gave." He reached back to try untying her wrists, but the blood-soaked knots were too tight to pick apart easily, and he couldn't see a way to snap the cords without hurting her further. Maybe he needed to start packing a knife everywhere, like Regan did. "All you have to do is not show up until we leave, and you're golden. You'll even have your human safe and sound. Mission complete."

"We could leave now," she said. "Help me walk, and we'll get out of here together."

"I'm not going back there with you," he said gently. If only he had the resources, the time. If only Regan would let him call in the Game. They would've sent someone for this, maybe even enough help to make a difference against Lightning. Every promise they'd made to him, he still believed. After all, their goals coincided so well, there was no reason for them to lie to him.

"Please, Jack."

"Come on," he said. "Let's get you into a dark corner. Just in case." He helped her to her feet, and got the Ofanite to the space beneath the stairs. Hidden from sight. Safe enough. "Don't worry," he said, when he set her down there. "We'll meet up again. I'll come find you some time when I've got more room to talk properly."

"I just want--"

"We all want things we can't have," he said, and gave her a quick hug before setting her down. "Keep quiet, and everything will be fine."

Despite everything, even his doubts about how the mission would end, he had to admit it to himself as he climbed the stairs again. It was good to see her. And next time, he'd be ready.


	21. In Which We Learn The Dangers Of Playing With Other People's Toys

Delegation is fun. I get to make the Djinn and Shedite unpack all the cases for me, pulling out parts and laying them out on the floor in the order I tell them, while I sit on an empty trunk and consult what relevant information I've been able to scavenge out of the notes. If I had a week to work with, and some way of pulling the information off those hard drives--

But I don't, and computers hate me anyway. The hard drives are safely packed away in the briefcase again, and the briefcase is in one of the vans. As soon as I pull some results out of this, we pack everything back up and _run_. Or so goes the plan. Here's to hoping that I can get this to turn on, because if I can't, this gets a lot less pleasant all around.

Jack strides into the gym with a locked-down expression, and goes to exchange a few terse comments with Regan. She's as happy as she ever is: she gets her way in everything right now, or is willing to believe that's how it's working. I have my doubts. That Ofanite might be shot up with more drugs to keep her stashed quietly, but I would be surprised if Jack actually shot her in any other sense, no matter what we heard from the house.

Anyway, I'd like to think she's okay. Maybe we can all get out of this with what we came after. It'd be a nice change of pace. Everyone wins.

Well, everyone but the War. If they win, I lose, and I'm not so fond of Regan as to throw the fight for her. Maybe if someone else had given me this job, but not with an actual Marquis waiting for results. I can't see any way for Regan to win this one. The closest thing to it that I can picture is if she loses while still thinking I'm backing her up all the way.

I'll see what I can do.

Regan shoos the Shedite off to do a perimeter scan. At this point, she's probably choosing who to send out on the principle that we'll hear the disturbance if someone jumps the Shedite a second time. Right now it's even odds as to whether Lightning or Zhune tags him first. He'll probably be luckier if Zhune does; my partner's not interested in conducting interrogations.

"What do you have so far?" she asks me, while I point the Djinn towards the wedge-shaped panel I want dragged over next to the others.

"I have a receiving platform, a control console, an enormous battery pack, and then some bits that go I don't know where yet and might actually be pieces from an earlier version of the prototype." I hold the paper I'm working from out to her, and she stares at it blankly. "Honestly, Regan, I don't know what this is going to do when I turn it on, except that _something_ is supposed to show up on that platform. Maybe we'd be better off making sure it all fits together and accepts power, then disassembling it again."

"It's not a functional device worth handing over to anyone until it does something," Regan says. "Beyond lighting up. Figure it out."

"I'll see what I can do."

A few minutes later, I have to stop giving directions, and start fitting pieces together myself. The Djinn's not terribly bright, and clearly here to soak damage and take orders rather than do anything so complicated as basic math and figuring out what direction to turn a plug to fit it into a socket.

And after a few minutes of putting pieces together, I start to get uncomfortable, because this is much too easy. Everything slots together naturally and perfectly in a way that's...I don't know. Inhuman. Unlike any electronic device I've ever used in my life. As if someone actually worked out some sort of platonic ideal for what user friendliness meant, and then built even their prototypes along those lines. Is that what Lightning does? Or is there some nasty trick hidden inside of all these pieces locking into place tidily and with no confusion?

Or maybe it's only that I'm a lot smarter than the Djinn, and this isn't so very complicated to assemble. Like putting together a puzzlebox again, except this one isn't even trying to deceive me. The wedges slot together around a central circle, and then an ankle-high panel slots into each of them to make a rim around the whole platform. The control panel hooks up tidily, plugs its cables into matching sockets, some of which I even recognize; two of them are bog-standard USB sockets.

I prop the control panel an upended trunk, and eye that battery pack, which is by far the largest single part of this device. It doesn't even come out of its trunk; the carrying case is built around it. That is a lot of power to pump into whatever this is. Summoning. Summoning _what_?

Then I blink, and realize why the pattern on the panels looks familiar. I've seen this before. In the spare bedroom and work space of a sorcerer, who had etched a summoning circle into the floor. "Regan," I say, and wait for her to break off from the latest terse argument with Jack. "I think I know what this does. Roughly."

"So turn it on," she says, striding over to glare down at me properly.

"This looks like sorcery," I say. "Which means what it summons is--I don't know. Maybe ethereals. Probably, because I can't imagine Lightning would want to start summoning demons. If I turn this on, I don't know how to control what comes in the other end. It didn't show up with an instruction manual."

"We can handle an ethereal," Regan says, with growing impatience. "Plug it in and turn it on."

"We know what it does," I say. "We know it fits together." The cable running from the battery is enormous, as thick as my vessel's wrists and connecting to a slot on one side of the platform that's been equipped with clasps that'll lock this into place as soon as it goes in. I pick up the cable, and eye that slot. "You can hand this over to someone with a description and let them test it somewhere much, much safer."

"I agree," Jack says, and I cannot understand the expression on his face. He's hiding something, and I don't know what. Makes me nervous. "Lightning's playing with technological sorcery? That's news right there. People will want to know sooner rather than later."

"And if it doesn't work," Regan says, "then what?" She flicks a dismissive gesture at him without even looking at him. "Plug it in, Leo."

I connect the battery to the platform, and the whole thing lights up. Like it was just waiting for that. No need for an on switch, even, because the console's booting itself up, the screen streaming with cryptic commentary about its startup protocols that I can't understand.

"Call the Shedite back," Regan says to Jack, her eyes on the pale blue lights lining the platform and picking out the sorcerous circle within. "Anything that drops through, we catch and keep."

I wonder what the chances are that turning this on was enough to alert Lightning to its location. Guess we'll find out soon.

The console settles into a simple touch interface with a variety of labeled buttons. I tap open Options, close that again when I can't understand a damn thing written inside. At least this is in English. Mostly. The next button that looks worth trying is Summon Request. Which gives me two rows of options, under the headings Call and Alert. Not that I can read any of the options; they're all strings of numbers and letters. Some sort of filing system or coordinates, at my best guess, which is not a very good one right now.

"Hey, Jack," I say, as he returns with the Shedite, "do _you_ have any experience with Lightning tech?" 

"Not really," he says. "Why?"

"Because I want to know if there's a significant difference between 'call' and 'alert' when it comes to trying to summon things."

"Call," Regan says. "We want to pull something in, not send it a message."

I back out of that menu, and check the clock readout in the corner of the screen. Assuming that it's still on EST, that puts us ten minutes from sunset, give or take a few minutes for longitude. "How about we wait until we all have some Essence to deal with whatever shows?"

"Fine," Regan says. She keeps trying to divide her attention between the gym door and the glowing equipment. "If Lightning meant to show up now," she says, as if she's trying to convince herself, "they would have arrived already. They aren't stupid enough to arrive at sunset."

See, if I were working for Lightning, I'd arrive about an hour after sunset. When they still expect me to not show up because everyone's been topped up on Essence, but are relaxing enough to have spent some again. Probably they're smart enough to come up with better plans than that.

An awkward nine minutes of waiting passes until Essence seeps in. That brings me up to a grand total of two, and I don't know what anyone else's reserves are like. Jack's probably full, unless he's been passing Essence to Regan, which I would not be surprised at, and I don't know what she started at...

Never mind. Not my problem. I pull up the Summon Request menus again. "You're sure about this," I say to Regan.

She draws a pistol, letting it hang loosely in her hand as she watches the platform. "Just push the fucking button," she says.

If all else fails, I can sing myself invisible and run for it while things explode. I make sure I'm standing with a trunk between me and the platform before I hit the first item listed under Call.

"Calling," says the console, in a cheery adolescent voice. "Please stand by. Make sure the receiver is clear. Calling. Please stand by. Calling. Connected! Incoming in ten... nine... You might want to plug your ears, folks. Eight... seven..."

The platform's lighting up, light amping up the brightness until I have to squint against the fierce blue glow. That's going to leave spots on my vision when I turn away, but I want to see what comes through. An itchy feeling at the back of my head resolves itself into a piercing whine that was outside the range of my hearing, and appears to be cascading down in pitch as it grows louder.

"Six... five... Seriously, it's time for earplugs... Four... three..."

I clap my hands over my ears. I don't have any weapons to hold onto. And I consider for one instant that I could just resonate through the power cord from here, blame a fault in the equipment, and cancel this out. If it's broken, it's broken, and we might as well run.

But then I might never get this equipment away from them before they take it back home, and the Marquis may well kill me if I let the War come out of this with a success.

"Last warning," says the chirpy voice from the console. "Two... one... Cover your eyes, folks. Arrival."

I close my eyes, and the flash of white hurts my eyes even through eyelids. The crack of sound cuts off abruptly, and it takes me a moment to work out that the echoing isn't just ringing in my ears, but disturbance rolling out around us. I think I could've set a building on fire and made less noise.

When I crack my eyes open, there's a man standing in the center of the platform. _Balseraph_ is what my instincts say, because he's taller than Regan, but with a similar build and a deep similarity in expression. As if they were both stamped from the same mold of arrogance, even if his is cast in button-down shirts and a thin pair of glasses that I suspect are a great deal more technical than one might suspect, while she's pointing a gun at his head.

He surveys the entire room, with four demons aiming--no, three demons aiming weapons at him carefully, and Jack's weapon shivering as it points that way. While I stand quietly by the console--it's gone blank again, and all the lights on the platform have turned off--pretending I'm not here at all.

"Kill him now," Jack says.

"That would be a bad idea," says the man, who cannot be a Balseraph. Lightning does not summon up demons, no reason why they would, and he does not seems surprised by anything of this. Full of disdain, yes. But not surprise or concern. He steps off the platform, and strides over to the console, ignoring every weapon trained on him. "Who put this together?"

I raise a hand, and back away from the console as he approaches. He taps the screen, and it lights up under his touch with a whisper of Essence spent.

"Stop that," Regan snaps, finding her voice again. I wonder how well any of the others can see, if they didn't listen to the warning to close their eyes. "Keep your hands where I can see them."

He glances over the tops of his glasses at her. "Are you in charge here?"

"Yes."

"Then if you want to surrender," he says, gaze dropping to the console again, "now would be the time."

Jack snaps off a shot, and it passes through the man without any effect, except to make me jump back another step. That was too close to me for comfort.

"What--" Regan begins, but the man isn't listening to her. Talking to himself, more like.

"Still having the phasing issue," he says, and frowns at the console. "Look at this power draw. No wonder. If we fix that, we should be able to reduce the total energy consumption by at least seventy percent, and then that takes care of half of the disturbance issue."

"Hold your fucking fire," Regan snaps to Jack, with a murderous look, and stalks forward towards this man, her gun still pointing at him. "Who are you?"

"You should know," he says, and turns the console back off. "You called." He straightens up, looking down his nose at her. "My name is Emmanuel. I am a Vassal of Lightning, and the phasing effect will last about twenty seconds more. Surrender now, as the offer ends when that does."

"You have no idea what you're--"

"No," he says, shoving his glasses back up on his nose, "you have no idea, or you never would have turned this on. Very well."

Three angels drop into the room, celestial bodies barely perceptible in here, but with that many of them, how could I _not_ notice? A zebra-bodied Cherub, an Elohite as pale and serene as Unathi ever was (I am not thinking about that), and a Malakite that's a blot of winged darkness in the center of the room.

Then they pull on vessels, and everything gets loud and confusing.

I sing up invisibility on myself, and flub the notes, dropping down into a crouch behind the trunk all the same. One Essence left, hell, there's nothing for it but to use that up and try again. Regan's lunging at the Malakite--a sword-wielding accountant, in his vessel--and he's just as eager to rush towards her, like this is a conversation they've been looking forward to taking up again. I don't know which of the Cherub and Elohite are which for the two other vessels, a woman in business skirts singing up the wind of Corporeal Shields and a pigtailed girl who could be her daughter lunging towards the Shedite with a gleaming knife drawn.

That's Jack trying to shoot at the man who first appeared, and who for his part merely stands calmly inside the whirling shields that woman called up around the two of them. His Cherub, I'll bet, which leaves the creepy Power as the girl with the blade.

Regan sings up Corporeal Shields herself, trapping the Malakite inside with her. She's a beautiful blur, and I would love to stay and help, but I'm edging away from this madness towards the door. She'll never know the difference.

The man with the glasses turns his head in my direction, and says, "Don't think I don't see you there."

Well. Hell.

The woman inside the shields with Emmanuel makes an irritable gesture towards Jack, and the clip drops out of his gun. "Should I?" she says to the man beside her, and he says, "I'll explain it to her myself."

The shields drop, and she leaps on Jack like someone who is not particularly bound to the logic of human vessels. He goes down hard, and electricity crackles around the two of them with more Essence spent.

And two more angels arrived, blazing spirals of fire that hurt to see. I've never seen an Ofanite's celestial form before. I should be running. Maybe he's not looking at me. But I'm staring at these spinning wheels of blazing fire, and wondering what my first Prince once was. When he wasn't Fire in the sense of the Word, but fire like this, deeper than bone. Instead of bone.

They drop to the ground as two young woman, identical in every detail, and share a private grin before they leap onto the Djinn that's been trying to tackle the Elohite-child leading him a merry chase.

Emmanuel seems to be in no hurry to join the melee, standing politely to the side and observing the process of bloody mayhem going on. Regan's winning her fight against the Malakite; Jack's howling curses in Helltongue under the attack of the Cherub, but--they're not directed at the Cherub. Nor even at Regan. (Though the Essence he's throwing into trying to fight off the Cherub is personal enough.)

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Emmanuel says to Jack, rather distantly, and turns to look at me again. "Stay there," he says, "or I will shoot you. I have questions for you when this is done, and I would rather not have to heal you to ask them." Then to the Malakite, "Stop that before you lose another vessel."

The Malakite drops his vessel to step backwards through the shields in celestial form, and pulls that vessel back on again a few steps away. The disturbance in here is deafening. Emmanuel steps forward to clap a hand on the Malakite's shoulder, and sings healing on him. On the floor, the Cherub shoves a knife down, and Jack isn't moving anymore.

The Djinn's collapsed on the floor, and bleeding out. The two Ofanim have the Shedite pinned down, while the Elohite grabs his chin and then shrugs. "I can't tell with that Corrupter in there," she says. "Knock him out and ask again." One of them slaps the Shedite's head across the concrete floor obligingly. "Carefully!"

"Neither of them has any honor worth keeping," the Malakite snaps, turning his back to Regan. Who's alone inside her shields, her sword dripping blood. She is beautiful and brilliant and everything a Balseraph should be, and she is going to die here. One more vessel lost to bad planning.

She'd do better if I had stayed with her. And I'm not sure I'd be any worse off than I am now. Funny, that.

"I'm sure on the Shedite, but not on the human it's in," says the Elohite, sitting back on her heels. "We could wait and find out."

"Trust me," says the Malakite, "I read that one before. He's no loss."

The Elohite shrugs, and stands. "Your call," she says, and an Ofanite cuts the man's throat.

When the Shedite pops out of its dead host, there are two Ofanim and a Cherub waiting for it in celestial form. I look away from what happens next, and watch the man in the glasses, who is watching Regan.

I might be able to sneak away right now, but I am not going to risk it. Zhune's probably waiting right outside, but if he has any damn sense he'll be grabbing that case from the vans--I made sure it was put in a front seat, right near a window, it should be _obvious_ to him--and then backing off. He cannot do anything against this group, and if I can't talk my way out, best he live to finish the job.

Regan's shield flickers as it tries to fade and she renews the Song. She cannot keep that up forever, and she knows it. I can track every movement of her eyes, even through the swirl of wine, as she tries to work out her options. All her allies dead or dying. She can't retreat without dissonance. She's not getting anything out of this, and oh, I'm nowhere to be seen.

I could hardly have fulfilled the Marquis' request better if I set this up personally, and I wish I could get Regan out of here.

She wouldn't appreciate it anyway.

"Come try a rematch," she says to the Malakite. "Maybe the third time's the charm." He whirls away from the mess of angels ripping apart that Shedite, and I can see how he is fully prepared to give her what she wants. Another round inside her bubble, and I wonder if that means she's taken out two of his vessels already.

"Or we could wait for you to run out of Essence," says Emmanuel, "and shoot you then."

"Cowards," Regan says, standing tall in the midst of her shields. "I would give you a fair fight."

"You tried to murder a reliever," says the angel who is, I think, not a Seraph, despite the vessel. He has the vessel for one, but he doesn't move like one, and he is speaking so calmly that I'm sure he's absolutely furious. "You have no right to speak of fair fights. However, I'm willing to make you a deal. Take celestial form, and I'll meet you there myself. They'll stay well out of it. Shall we?"

This is the very definition of a bad idea. Such a bad idea that I want to drop the Song and tell Regan to say no. Most people wake up from Trauma, and she has before. This is an angel who wants to rip Forces off someone, and she is the last one standing as a target.

"I'll pass," Regan says.

"Pity," Emmanuel says.

When her shields go down, she's ready to fire. But the gun jams in her hand. And it turns out Emmanuel has a gun too. From the way those bullets hit, I suspect it's one of those artifacts that does more damage to demons than anyone else. Regan always had good vessels.

I hate watching her die when I have nothing against what she's doing.

But, hey. I have a job to do. And her death makes it that much nearer to done. She'll be fine, anyway. She always is eventually.

I sigh, and let the Song go. The disturbance made by its release is barely audible in the monstrous echoes still ringing through the gym. They will be hearing this miles and miles away, and any Tether unfortunate enough to be attached in this area had better hope it's nailed down securely. "And to think," I say to Emmanuel, "when people told me Lightning strike teams were noisy, I was imagining something several shades quieter than this."

"This isn't a strike team," he says. "These are a few of my coworkers who were available when the call came in. A proper strike team would have been tidier. And louder." His gaze is so purely dispassionate, I could imagine he's an Elohite--but no, not with that offer he made to Regan. "Where's Kai?"

Emmanuel. Ah. Of course. I've seen the name. Or at least the nickname. "In the basement of the house," I say, "with the Soldier. Jack was supposed to shoot her, but I'm betting he didn't."

"And now," says the Malakite, cleaning his sword on a monogrammed handkerchief, "can I kill this one?"

"No," says Kai's boyfriend. Bright Lilim. Oh how I wish I were wearing sunglasses right now. _You don't look at people's eyes the right way, _she said, and that way he's studying my eyes right now is what she's recognize as the right way. "Not yet. You're not with them, so what are you?"__

__"Theft," I say, and give him my Valefor smile. It doesn't really work properly when I'm this battered. "The funny part is that I came here to swipe what they took from you."_ _

__And I could say more, but Kai walks through the door, and he's forgotten I'm even there._ _

__They fall into each other's arms like it's a god damn movie, except in the movies there's more swelling music and much better clothing, while here it's just her bloody hands locked behind his back and him clutching her right back like he's afraid she might collapse. She won't. She walked this far on her own._ _

__"I am not feeling so good," she says, "and I am so glad to see you, and someone needs to go see to that Soldier, who's had a much worse week than I have." One more squeeze, and she lets go, and walks around him in tight circles. Still unsteady on her feet, but she's walking. She'll be fine. "Nosha? Zif? Please? He needs someone who can understand him right now."_ _

__"On it," says the little girl who is anything but. She shoots me a thoughtful glance, and then walks out briskly._ _

__The Cherub follows her, but not until she's stared at me with more careful suspicion._ _

__Like I'm going to do anything shady, in a building with three Ofanim, a Malakite, and--well, whatever Emmanuel is, I am a lot more scared of him than he is of me._ _

__"I'm sorry about Jack," Emmanuel says, and he even sounds it. "There wasn't time to try anything else."_ _

__"No. It's--I get it. It hurts, but he's the one who decided to do this." Her orbit around her boyfriend lets her look across the room, and she is so careful not to look at Jack's body every time her gaze might pass that way naturally. "I can't fix anything by letting him get away with hurting people, no matter how much I want to give him a pass." She even gives me a shaky little smile when her route takes her between me and Emmanuel. How strange. "I guess you don't need to call in the strike team after all."_ _

__"I suppose so," he says. "They're likely to appreciate the downtime, given last month's work." He brushes fingers across her hand, and moves out of that orbit to come look over me close up. "And now we ought to deal with loose ends."_ _

__I spread my hands silently. Not a lot of bargaining position for me here, though I am trying to think of what I have to work with. Lilim _like_ making deals, especially if they come out better on that deal._ _

__"Be nice," Kai says, following up behind him, and she slides under his arm. Leans in against him, like it's natural and comfortable. If she had a partner like that down here with her, maybe she wouldn't get into these messes. "She helped me get in." Her smile turns sheepish when he frowns down at her. "Hey, I cleared it with Gariel. I just didn't want to bother you with something to worry about until I was done."_ _

__"Kai," he says, voice pained, "you need to stop working with demons who seem trustworthy. They never are."_ _

__"Most of them aren't," she agrees, back in that good cheer I remember from when we met. "But it's worth trying. Sometimes it ends well." She nudges him in the ribs with her elbow, and grins. But the expression she turns towards me is more serious. "You know, we can't let you walk away with anything here."_ _

__"Walking away with my vessel intact would suffice," I say. "Could we work out something with that?"_ _

__"Maybe," Emmanuel says. "But you would owe me."_ _

__I huff out a sigh. "How much?"_ _

__"A year's Geas," he says. "Acceptable?"_ _

__"No deal," I say, no matter what I'd like out of this. "If I show up with a Geas like that, and nothing else to show for my trouble, people will ask more questions than if I hit Trauma during this mess. I'm not even supposed to know your kind of angel _exists_."_ _

__"You could come with us," Kai says._ _

__"I appreciate the thought, but again, bad plan. My partner would do something stupid to get me back from the wicked kidnappers, and again, awkward questions from authority figures." I run my hands through my hair, which is filthy with blood and dust and sweat by this point. I want a beer and a shower and a hug. "How about I tell you who sent me to steal your equipment from the War, and why, and we call it even?"_ _

__"We could get that out of you anyway," says the Malakite, stalking toward me. The two Ofanim are busy disassembling the machine, working in perfect unison to pull the sections apart and pack them back into the trunks. "If you don't start talking--" He shuts up, with a scowl, when Emmanuel raises a hand._ _

__"Your opinion has been taken into consideration," says the Bright Lilim. "Help the Wheels pack. We want to be out of here before anyone else shows up to investigate."_ _

__"But she's--"_ _

__Emmanuel snaps a look at him. It's better than a command, because the Malakite clamps back the rest of his objection, and stalks away._ _

__"He's just sore because on strike teams, you don't get to do that," Kai murmurs. "You enjoy that far too much, Mannie."_ _

__"I might," says the Bright Lilim blandly, and returns his attention to me. "Why should I trust any information you give me--" He pauses, and asks Kai, "What Band is she, anyway?"_ _

__"Calabite."_ _

__"They let a _Calabite_ assemble the equipment?"_ _

__"Hey," I say, "I was actually the person with the most technical experience." I swallow at the glare that gets me. "Yeah, I found that sort of unsettling too. Look. I have names and addresses for four Vapulans who were really interested in what you were doing, and pissed off at the War sweeping in when they had a more subtle grab planned. I can give you that information, and swear that to the best of my knowledge, all the names and addresses I give you are for actual Vapulans with a connection to this fiasco. Plus, hey, a bonus fifth name and address for someone I worked for recently. All I want is the promise that you let me walk out of here in about the same shape as now, and give me a half hour's head start before you let anyone start chasing after me. Fair?"_ _

__"Deal," he says, and the Geas settles around me._ _

__"Have a pen and paper?" I ask, and it turns out he has both. Seemed more like the smartphone type to me. I print out in my neatest hand the names that the Marquis gave us. She was setting them up to take the fall for this, and they are thus assuredly connected to this fiasco. Then I add the name and address of that dead Habbalite at the end._ _

__The Geas seems satisfied enough. This is why it's important to be careful about wording when dealing with Lilim._ _

__I pass the notebook back to him. "Nice meeting you. I intend to claim no knowledge of your existence if it comes up anywhere." One more quick smile, and a jaunty wave, and I walk out of the gym._ _

__But Kai's following me. She catches up with me a few steps outside the gym. "Hey," she says. "Aren't you going to get in trouble for that? Telling us who sent you?" And she flashes me another grin. "I'm not _chasing_ you. Just asking a question."_ _

__"If anyone tracks the leak back to me--which they probably won't--I tell them that I lied my head off, but, wow, who knew the guy leading the raid was a Seraph? Can't be helped."_ _

__"Clever."_ _

__"That excuse works more often than you'd think." I stick to the dusty driveway now that I don't have to go sneaking around on this property. Fewer mines this way. "You should get back to your boyfriend. I get the impression he wants to wrap you up in bubblewrap and keep you somewhere safe for a while."_ _

__"Yeah, probably," she says, her smile turning rueful. "My job's hard on him sometimes. But he knows full well how bored I'd be without any work to do, so he puts up with it, and we manage. Here." She offers me a ragged strip of paper. "My phone number. I mean, it won't work until we get my phone back from wherever they sent it, but if you ever want to call..."_ _

__"I probably won't," I say, and take the paper. Same number I already know, from when she thought I was an angel. Which implies, in a weird way, that she's just as sincere now as she was then._ _

__"No," she says, "I don't really expect you to, but it's an option. You'll probably hit voice mail, but still. If you ever want to talk. Doesn't even have to be about Ofanite stuff."_ _

__Her smile's like sunlight, and she dashes back to the gym. The tranq's wearing off, and she'll be as fast as ever pretty soon._ _

__Which means I'd better keep moving._ _

__#_ _

__Zhune picks me up half a mile down the road, in a new car. "You look like you were mauled by something," he says, and keeps the driver's seat while I slump back in the passenger seat. "What happened?"_ _

__"Got interrogated by angry demons of the War," I say, "convinced them I could be useful, maintained my utility up until they accidentally called in Lightning, and then managed to pass off the full list of Tech addresses to the angels as my price for walking away. Not a bad day. Did you get the suitcase I staged for you?"_ _

__"Of course," Zhune says. "Anything else happen in there?"_ _

__"Nothing interesting," I say, which he probably doesn't believe. But if he wants more information than that, he can damn well find me a shower and a beer._ _


	22. In Which My Cleverness Is Appreciated

A different city, a different hotel, and a different hotel employee as the host for her Shedite, but the most surprising thing about walking into the Marquis' suite is that it's in pristine condition. Apparently she doesn't destroy every room she inhabits. Just the ones who are unfortunate enough to be in her presence when she's unhappy.

Zhune sent word ahead to get directions on where to do the drop-off, so she _should_ be happy. She knows we're not about to walk back in here with nothing to show for it. I have the briefcase, and Zhune has his confidence, and between the two of us we almost look like professional thieves.

At least we stopped for long enough to get me a shower. If not, alas, a change of clothing. There's still more blood on this shirt than I might like, and the hoodie's seen better days. Any day before the one where an angel bought it for me would qualify as a better one.

"She's waiting in the conference room," says the Shedite, and nods to the appropriate door. "But she wants to see you one at a time."

I could ask why, but I already know the answer on that one. The better to catch omissions in the reports we give on what happened, or slip-ups and lies. Fortunately, Zhune doesn't know most of what happened inside, so all we have to do is tell our respective stories, and we should be fine.

"Whatever," I say, and look to Zhune. "Want to start?"

"She wants you to go in first," the Shedite tells me. Which is not the order I'd prefer to run this, but, sure. Getting it over with. I shrug, and head into the room as directed.

The Shedite closes the door behind me. How considerate.

The conference room barely qualifies for the name; this is a hotel suite, not an office building, and I don't think you could seat more than six comfortably at this table. I wait for the Marquis to deign to notice me, and try not to shift back and forth on my feet. After this many hours of driving, I want to go--do something. Other than this debriefing. Something that lets me stretch out, and I will settle for a bar crawl with Zhune if that's what's offered.

"Sit down," she says at last, and points to a chair near where she sits at the head of the table. So I take a seat there, in an enormous executive chair that's over-padded and trying too hard to look ominous, while she sits in one just like it and manages to make the pose look professional and authoritative. That's a nice trick. Wish I could pull it off. "Tell me what happened." I hesitate for a moment while I try to put the words in order, and she adds dryly, "In brief. I will ask questions if I want detail."

Brief? I can do brief.

"We tracked down the War's base," I say, "and ran into a Sparky trying to retrieve a Soldier. We made a deal with the angel to get in together. Zhune ran a distraction, the angel and I got inside, and the War jumped us. I convinced them to let me run through the technical data. I put together the equipment and activated it, which dropped Lightning in. Lightning took out the Warriors and retrieved their people; I traded them the list of Tech addresses to get out myself. Zhune picked up the data while everyone was distracted by the fight."

She drums her fingers on the table as she listens. It's the same pattern of beats Zhune uses when he's thinking, and doesn't that just make me wonder. "You left all the equipment to Lightning?" she asks at last.

"Yes. I didn't see any way to pull it out, much less without them following." I set the briefcase on the table between us, and try not to think about its uses as a metaphorical barrier against whatever her opinion of this may be. We did spectacularly, especially given the situation. But _did the job well_ and _rewarded_ have never mapped together much in my experience of Hell's hierarchies. "The War swiped hard drives in the raid, plus papers. We got both. No idea how long the data on them will be any good." I shut up at the faint narrowing of her lips, because I think I'm talking too much again. She does not seem to be one for dramatic gestures, but she's not hard to read, either.

She snaps open the briefcase. Of course a Marquis of Theft doesn't need keys to do that. Her gaze passes over the contents, back to me, and then she snaps it shut again. "Is that all?" I nod promptly. "You performed adequately. Would you like a reward?"

That is a trick question if I've ever heard one. And much as I'm tempted to claim the thrill of the work is its own reward, she's unlikely to buy that as my honest response. Hell. I should've asked Zhune for more advice on the way over, but I was dumb enough to assume we'd be sitting in here together, and that I could let him take the lead. "I would not turn down the standard in-house rates," I say, which is weaker than I'd like, vaguer than she wants, the best I can come up with before I'm quiet so long that anything I say sounds idiotic.

"You do not think big, do you," she says.

"I leave that to my partner."

"He must enjoy that," she says, dry enough to turn rivers to dust. "Would you like to work for me? I have an opening for a clever Destroyer who can keep her head when confronted by angels, and perhaps your recent dealings with Lightning could be useful to me."

"I will gladly take whatever assignment my Prince gives me," I say, and try to show off that _keep her head_ with a steady tone. Do I sound glib? Maybe a little. No helping it now. "Since the Boss told me to work with Zhune, that's what I'll continue doing until he tells me otherwise."

"What commendable dedication you have to the orders you've been given," she says, and flicks her fingers. "Tell Zhune he may come in now."

I escape from the room at a reasonable pace, and find Zhune waiting two steps from the door, arms folded, deliberately not looking at the Shedite who's eyeing him...nervously, I'd say. "Your turn," I tell my partner, and rub the back of my neck. I should not feel this tense when the worst of everything is over. The job's done. We can get out of here with _nothing_ and be fine.

He nods curtly, and stalks inside, more Djinnish in movement than he usually allows himself to be in front of watchers.

"They might be a while," the Shedite tells me. It's not afraid of _me_ , and I do not like its smile. "Want to do anything to kill the time while they're in there?"

"Sure," I say. "Have you ever noticed how flimsy the glass on these fifteenth-story windows are?"

"You could just say no," the Shedite mutters, and sulks away to the front door again, nibbling on a hangnail. Presumably if anyone else shows up at the door, it can greet them and annoy them in turn. Me, I slouch against a wall and wait for my partner to finish the job.


	23. An Interlude, In Which Old Grudges Are Not Forgotten

Zhune stood by the table, because Chaixin had not offered him a seat. She flipped through papers from the briefcase, which perhaps she was able to read. Almost none of it had made any sense to him. Technical matters did not interest him, unless they were part of a security system, and the Lightning device clearly was no such thing.

"You performed better than I expected," she said, and that was not a concession of any sort. Her eyes raised to focus upon him at last, and he wished that Daosheng were still alive. That would have made this conversation less dangerous. "Do you believe your partner gave me an accurate explanation of events?"

"Yes," he said. "Though she edited out anything that cast her in a poor light."

"One must allow children these fictions," said the Marquis. "Thus they remain happier, and live long enough to learn better. Or so they do if given the chance to live, as she nearly was not. Do all your plans with this partner involve feeding her to the enemy, and seeing what happens?"

"Only the ones she creates," he said. "We had the situation under control."

"So the results suggest." She dropped the papers to the surface of the table, where they slid apart across the glossy black finish. "I have never understood why he continues to give you the clever ones, when you break them and wear them out before they reach enough age to become sensible. Were you looking to destroy this one too, Zhune? Or were you simply seeking an excuse to give her away?"

"I was looking for a way to accomplish the task you set us to," he said, as carefully as he could. All care was needed in Chaixin's presence, because the slightest lack of care would lead him to unwise action, and then to retribution. All that held her back was that he had never given her an excuse to act, not in all the years since he begged for a transfer to another part of the world where he could stay well out of her sphere of influence. "You told us to risk anything to solve your problem--" There was more weight to that possessive than was wise. "--and so we did."

"So she did," Chaixin said. She sat very still, as was always dangerous from a Destroyer. "Why did you bring her in and show her to me, demonstrate how much she could do with so little, unless you wanted me to take her off your hands?"

"You have never had a use for Calabim as servants," Zhune said.

"I reserve the right to change my opinions." The Marquis smiled the way their Prince did when he meant to take a Servitor apart. "Nonetheless, you have earned a reward. You have used your tools well, and brought me what I wanted. You have destroyed my enemies, and this time, you showed some level of competence in the process. What would you like, Zhune?"

_For you to keep your fucking hands off my partner._ He shrugged one shoulder, a proper response from a Djinn. "Nothing that you could give me, Marquis."

"Ask for something," she said, "or I'll reward you as I like."

"You can't," he said, and that was a loss of _careful_ right there, no matter how steady his voice. "The Boss won't let you. Or we wouldn't be having this conversation now. Try to steal her if you'd like; he gave her to me, and she's mine until he decides otherwise. He won't let you kill me. So what do you want to give me as a reward, Chaixin? Let your own forethought guide you here, and I won't argue with the results."

"One of these days," said the Marquis, as the table between them crumbled to splinters, "you will lose his favor, and no one he shields you from will have forgotten what you did."

"Perhaps," Zhune said. He brushed the dust of disintegrating wood from the cuffs of his shirt. "Until then, there's no point in making threats. If you want a job failed to prove a point, give it to someone else. If you want my partner, you know who to ask for permission." He met her gaze, and did not give her an inch of space in which to break that eye contact without looking weaker than him. "Are we done here, Marquis? Or is there anything else you wanted to know from me?"

"Go," she said.

When he left the room, he didn't slam the door. There was no reason to give her that satisfaction. There was no reason to pause on his way out of the suite, because his partner fell in with him as soon as she saw him. No need to make the immediate exit explicit.

"That was noisier than I expected," she said, inside the elevator. "What happened?"

"She didn't like how well we did," Zhune said. He stretched his fingers, and made no fists out of them. There was no reason to be upset by mere discussion. She could do nothing to him unless Valefor allowed her, and so long as he never made a mistake worthy of punishment...

Well. That was always the trick, wasn't it? Make no error. Nothing less than perfection would do.

"I gather we're not getting paid," Leo said, and slouched against the corner of the elevator, arms folded across her chest. It was a pose that did not belong to the vessel she wore. "Somehow, I think we'll cope."

Zhune let his partner pick the next car to steal, and that was a concession of sorts.

"She tried to hire me away," Leo said, fifteen minutes later in the middle of rush hour traffic. "How much should I worry about that?"

"Why," Zhune asked, "do you want to work for her?"

Leo glared at him from the driver's seat. "Like you even have to _ask_. I'd sooner feed my left arm into a wood chipper than get involved in Hell's politics. And work for someone with that kind of temper? I don't think so."

"You're entirely her type," Zhune said. "She may go ask the Boss for the loan."

"He won't let her," Leo said, so quickly that she must not have believed it.

"No," Zhune said. He tilted his seat back a notch, and closed his eyes against the glare of the sun through the windshield. "Not right now."


	24. In Which The More We Change, The More We Stay The Same

Sobriety's creeping back into my head like an incompetent burglar. Sneaky as it is, I notice its approach. And I think we've finally run out of all the beer Zhune hauled into this room an hour after we checked in. Which was...some time ago. Quite some time ago.

I roll over under his arm, and poke him in the chest with my knuckles. "What time is it?"

He cracks his eyes open to look down at me. "Six."

"In the morning or the evening?"

"Evening."

Right. I try to map that to the general alcohol-induced short term memory loss of the last few...the latest stretch of time. "What day is it?"

"We have four hours before we need to move," Zhune says, and closes his eyes again. Which I guess puts us on day three in this room. No wonder I'm this tired of the place.

I slide out from under his arm, and onto the floor. Bare feet against tacky expensive carpet, and we should stick to motels if we're not going to bother with room service anyway. These places are a waste of money.

But the shower's water pressure is good, and the towels are fluffy, so, hey. Credit where it's due. And at some point while I was drunk enough to black out, Zhune got my clothes washed. It is a relief to pull on clothes that don't smell like anything but detergent, and the bloodstains are largely invisible on the black shirt.

And because Zhune's had three days to get over whatever lingering twitchiness he's had from this last job, I swap to my other vessel once I'm dressed. The vessel change hits my head like a hammer made of caffeine, because there's no alcohol in the bloodstream of my male body. Hell, I think some of the coffee buzz from Ash's apartment is still running through these veins. It's like seeing the world through different eyes, and not just in the literally true sense.

I'm the same person no matter my vessel, but you wouldn't know it from how some people treat me. Maybe I could've saved some trouble with the Marquis by wearing this one--but I still suspect that when Zhune was talking about "her type" he didn't mean visually.

I'd do better with Hell's politics if I knew anything about them. I'd need to get involved to learn more. No thank you. I will stay as far away from people with power as I can manage, for as long as I can keep that going. Trying for promotions has never done me an ounce of good.

In the mirror, I look like an ordinary sort of human. Someone you wouldn't look at twice on the street. My shirt's wrinkled from what happened at Ash's place, and otherwise it's...not bad. Not sharp and tidy, but not unusually messy. Ordinary levels of human deviations from perfection. No one would look at me and think Calabite.

I like the anonymity. That I could be anyone and no one would know the difference. That my body is the right sex, almost as tall as I'd like, and not trying to look like anything particular for anyone else's tastes but my own. This is the best reward I ever got from the Boss, and all I had to do was convince a Mercurian of War to help me stop some Servitor of Death from releasing an ancient plague via sorcerous ritual. 

There's probably a lesson to be found in that, but damned if I know what it is.

When I leave the bathroom, Zhune's half-dressed and pulling together what clothes are still scattered around the room. He heard me swap vessels, so he can't pretend any surprise to what I look like now, but there's annoyance settling in around the corners of his eyes. Which he will just have to live with, because I gave him three days to have his own way.

"When do you want to head out?" I ask him. "And where are the keys?"

"After I do more laundry." He picks up his coat, eyes it critically, and hangs that up on the back of a chair. It'll need ironing before he can pull together his preferred style properly again. "You destroyed the keys a day and a half ago."

"Huh. Don't remember that." I shove my hands in the pockets of my jacket, and roll my shoulders back. Almost three days is more time than I should ever have to spend locked up in a single room. "I'll find another car. Back in an hour or two."

"Don't get lost." Zhune catches up with me by the door, and stuffs cash into my pocket. "Or caught."

"What do you take me for? We're Theft. We only get caught when we mean to."

It's not strictly true, but it's a good line. And I have the smile to go with it.

#

Two stops and half an hour later, our new car is parked behind a closed library, and I'm on the library roof watching the sunset. It's one of the good ones, streaking bright red through the clouds, and the fading sunlight glints nicely off the penny in my fingers as I spin that about.

Not as shiny as it was when I took it out of the box, but it's not decaying too much. It's tougher than I thought.

Everyone seems to want me to be something I'm not. Or not quite. Which is, I don't know, the way of the world. Probably I should be grateful that anyone wants me in the first place. There are worse fates than to have multiple job offers lined up, even if most of those offers come with hidden clauses about pain and potential death. Valefor could have taken me apart when he caught up with me, for what I did. Had every right to do that. And he let me take up service with him instead. I should be _grateful_.

He even gave me a partner who backs me up. Lets me make the plans. Runs interference between me and the nastier parts of Theft's organization. Keeps me alive and safe, as best he can. Yes. I should be grateful, especially remembering what it was like serving the War, whose Prince was not interested in giving me anything at all.

Or maybe he picked me up as a present for a favorite Djinn because I was convenient and interesting enough to not break immediately. The way Zhune brings me expensive watches and silver lighters and cash and clothing. Maybe it doesn't matter what I do or who I try to please, because the person who gets to make all the decisions does not care a thing for me. Princes never do. We are all tools or toys, even if they have favorites among us. Being grateful doesn't matter.

The sunset's nearly gone, and the wind's picking up. I shove the penny back in the coin pocket of these jeans. Another hour before Zhune starts wondering. Plenty of time yet. Here I am with no one listening or watching, an hour of time to spare, and a phone I picked up at a convenience store that I can destroy as soon as I'm done with it.

And all these phone numbers I know. Mostly for people who want me to be something else.

I lie on my back, staring at the sky, while the phone rings. Twice before it picks up, and why am I not surprised he's that quick to answer?

"Hel _lo_ , Ash speaking, how can I help you today?"

"Hey," I say. "It's Leo. Thought I'd call to say hi, since my last assignment didn't manage to kill me. Had a chance to look at that book yet?"

"I did!" He sounds happy to hear from me. I don't even care if it's an act, because he sounds happy to hear from _me_ , not some hypothetical other person who I might turn into. "You were right, it's exactly the sort of thing I like. And the annotations were helpful. I ended up googling for more information on some of the weirder side bits, and it turns out there's this whole set of terrible morality stories from the same era free online. You have to read some of these, they're so bad it's delightful."

"Yeah? Tell me about them."

I watch the stars bright enough to shine through the haze of city lights pop into visibility above me, while Ash chatters on the phone, and I ask questions in the right places. From down here, I can't see the stars move, but I know the Earth's moving beneath me. Which will suffice. I'm fine where I am for now.


End file.
